Hints About Love
by speckledfox
Summary: Marinette recharges her phone after Oblivio is defeated, and discovers that Adrien was one of the people she called while her memories were erased. Marinette quickly begins to piece together all the clues she left behind, leading to the strong suspicion that Adrien could be Chat Noir.
1. Chapter 1

Hello friends! This is my first Miraculous Ladybug fan fiction.  
It may appear that I am a new story writer, but I used to post stories on this website. I haven't written fan fiction in several years, but I found myself very impassioned by the most recent episode of miraculous Ladybug. Please read, review if you can, and enjoy! I appreciate all comments!

* * *

Marinette simply couldn't get the events that had just unfolded a mere twenty minutes ago out of her mind. She sat on the bus next to Alya, who was absolutely ecstatic from her discovery of Chat and Ladybug kissing. Marinette nervously looked out the window, trying to drown out Alya's excited squeals and her oh so important realization that the Ladynoir ship had finally set sail to the definitive destination called _love_.

"I just cannot believe that this is real!" Alya exclaimed, looking at the newly taken photograph on her phone. Marinette could see Alya's hands shaking from anticipation at the raw evidence that she held in her grasp, or what Marinette mentally referred to as _dirt. _This was nothing more than an exploit of her and Chat's relationship. A mistake she made while her memories were lost, taken completely out of context by a fan girl… and it was going to be posted online for the whole world to see. Undoubtedly, everyone was going to misinterpret the situation.

Marinette could imagine it now- the magazines, the tabloids, the news articles; all revolving around her supposed love affair with Chat Noir. Surely Alya would also include Ladybug's mention of the _other boy_, only encouraging the media into a further frenzy.

Marinette's could feel her stomach churn uncomfortably at the invasive thoughts.

"Maybe… Ladybug really doesn't love Chat Noir." Marinette said amongst Alya's chattering which paused dramatically upon hearing her words.

Alya looked to her shocked. "Of course they do! Why would Ladybug and Chat have kissed right before their memories were restored? It's obvious that they had realized their feelings for each other."

Marinette shook her head and looked down to the floor of the bus. "No that's not what I mean. I-I just think that the media takes things out of proportion with their relationship, and maybe you're letting that guide your perspective of them."

Alya looked a bit hurt. "What do you mean? I have the best intel on their relationship out there, better than any news outlet! I think I would know the most about their relationship."

In Alya's mind, she was convinced she knew ladybug the best out of any civilian. It didn't take long for Alya to understand that Ladybug was a stubborn type. Her judgements in action were usually precise and rationally sound, but she most often followed her gut instincts when it came to her emotions. She found it hard to let go of emotions, even if they were proven fragile or superficial. Alya predicted that in the case of Chat Noir, Ladybug's admonishment of her emotions for him was merely a result of the conflicting emotions she felt for this other boy.

"I know Alya, I don't mean to doubt you at all. What I mean to say is that we don't really know a lot about their hero lives, let alone their civilian lives. The media always frames them to be in love with each other, even though Ladybug has strongly denied it."

Adrien had been paying close attention to their conversation from the seat across from them. He could see that Marinette looked visibly uncomfortable in the conversation with Alya. He thought about interjecting, but Marinette continued on.

"Something very well could have led them to make a mistake or assumption about the nature of their relationship while their memories were erased, leading them to assume they were in love with each other."

Alya pondered this for a moment. "You know, you do make a good point. I hadn't thought about that."

"Yes, exactly! What if Ladybug and Chat Noir somehow saw some news coverage that kept insisting they were together, and they just assumed that it must be true. Having no memories and suddenly being told you're a couple would clearly make you see the other person in a different light"

Marinette was honestly hoping this was the case, although it was just a guess as to what could have happened.

Before Alya could respond, Adrien inserted, "but why would they be looking at news coverage if they had no reason to believe they were super heroes in the first place? I guess the better question is how did they rediscover that they were heroes?" Chat had already been hit by Oblivio's powers by the time Ladybug began drawing on the wall of the elevator, so he had no idea that she did in fact leave a clue for them.

Marinette was startled by Adrien's sudden question. She already partially knew the answer to it, albeit she did not know the full answer. "W-well" She choked out. "l was thinking that perhaps one of them left a clue somewhere before they lost their memories, to help them figure things out."

Adrien hadn't thought of that at all, and figured that fast thinking like that could only be attributed to one hero. "Probably Ladybug", he blurted out rather frankly.

Marinette giggled to this just as the bus stopped on the street in front of the school to let the students out.

Adrien looked to her with kind eyes as the students in front began to exit the bus and the rest in back stood up from their seats. "You know, I think that Ladybug probably did leave some kind of message behind. She's amazingly brilliant like that"

Marinette's face flushed red as a tomato and her legs felt weak to his compliment. "H-he thinks I'm brilliant!" She thought, and thanked god for giving her an Adrien Agreste approved brain.

"But I do disagree with one thing" Adrien added on, causing Marinette to refocus.

The spark of love and determination in Adrien's eyes overwhelmed Marinette and took her by surprise, and a bright smile adorned his lips. "I really do think that Ladybug and Chat are meant for each other, and that their kiss was absolutely genuine."

Marinette stuttered "yo-you really t-think so?"

"I know so" he firmly stated while picking up his bag. Marinette exited the bus right behind Adrien as she stared at the back of his pretty blond head dumbfounded.

How could he be so sure about this?

* * *

Marinette thought about what Adrien said the whole walk home for lunch.

"I don't get it Tikki, how can he be so confident about the emotions of two people he doesn't know?"

Tikki laughed, instantly having understood the intent behind Adrien's words. "Perhaps he's a fan of Ladybug and Chat Noir just like Alya is. You know how heated fans become when you question their uh- what do you call it?"

"Their ship?"

"Yeah that!" Tikki exclaimed. _At least it wasn't a lie that Adrien was her fan, he was probably the biggest fan she had._

Marinette really thought about this. "I never really took him as an especially devoted fan of either me or Chat, but I guess it does give me secret brownie points in his favor if he really is a big fan!"

Tikki raised an eye brow. "And what are secret brownie points?"

"They're the secret points that only I get or acknowledge. I get them every time Adrien says something nice about Ladybug or compares me to Ladybug."

Tikki thought about this and grinned. "Oh…. Sounds a little bit narcissistic. I would much rather prefer real brownies."

Marinette looked to Tikki angrily, causing her to stop in midair.

"No! I didn't mean it like that, I know you're not a narcissist Marinette. I was just joking."

Marinette's face immediately melted into a smile as she tried to hold back a laugh. "Tikki I'm just playing with you, I know you don't mean it! You're so gullible sometimes." Marinette arrived in front of the Bakery.

Tikki gave a pouty face as she floated back into Marinette's bag. "you're the gullible one, you don't even know that Adrien is Chat!" She thought to herself.

She met her Maman at the front who greeted her with a hug. "Oh I'm so glad you called us earlier and told us you were alright, we were really worried."

Marinette wasn't surprised by this, but she was curious what her memory erased self managed to figure out.

"My memories were wiped earlier by the akuma, so I don't remember calling you. What did you and I say to each other?"

"Oh honey, I remember telling you that Ladybug and chat Noir were battling a super villain at the mount Pinos tower. It really scared me since I knew that's where you and your class were going on a field trip today." Sabine said with a concerned expression.

"Thanks for your concern Maman, what did I tell you?"

"Well, you said that you were safe and with your friends. You sounded a little unsure, but I'm sure that was just the forgotten memories. Did your friends help you out when you lost your memories?"

"Oh yeah, they must have totally told me everything that I needed to know about myself to contact you, otherwise how could I have managed it?" Marinette gave a weird smile and thought, _"I doubt any of my friends even know I lost my memories!"_

"I'm glad you're safe, Lunch is almost ready!" Marinette's father walked up, giving Marinette a kiss to the head.

"Ok Papa!" Marinette climbed up to her room, setting her bags down next to her desk. She dug her phone out of her pocket, and pugged it in to its charger.

"I had it in mind for my memory erased self to call Master Fu when I drew that turtle. That's more than likely how we learned how to use our powers." Marinette stated, sitting down at her desk chair and turning on her computer.

"You most certainly did, there was no way you could have understood how to use your miraculous without him. The same goes for Chat." Tikki said, munching on a cookie that she grabbed from Marinette's purse.

"On top of that, we also would have definitely seen each other's identities. Both me and Chat had already used our abilities by the time we got into the elevator."

Tikki nodded in agreement and gave a cheeky smile. "These recent Akumas have really been putting you and Chat to the test, in more ways than one."

Marinette let out a stressed groan to her kwami's snarky comment. "You're telling me! You know sometimes I think you must ship me and Chat together just like the rest of Paris." She huffed.

"I just like to tease you, I'll support whoever it is that you choose to love."

Tikki looked at her with sympathetic eyes; she understood the difficulties of Marinette's life better than anyone. Marinette had explained on numerous occasions that romance between superheroes would only give Hawkmoth another means of potential manipulation. Because of this, Marinette had tried very hard to not give any person a reason to believe that Ladybug and Chat were in love. One photograph was likely going to break all of that.

Marinette pulled up the lady blog. Alya hadn't posted anything about Oblivio yet, and it was making Marinette nervous wondering what she was going to write about the picture.

"I know there's nothing I can do to stop her from posting the picture, but hopefully she'll listen to what I said and won't try to spin some weird narrative on it."

"Marinette lunch is ready!" Her father called down.

* * *

Marinette walked to her seat and sat down. Adrien, Nino, and Alya were all already it their seats. Rose took notice to Marinette's presence, and walked next to her desk.

"Hey Marinette! I was wondering what happened to you during the field trip, we couldn't find you at all. Me and Juleka hid when the akuma attacked, so it didn't get us. After Oblivio left and most of our classmates lost their memories, we decided it might be dangerous for everyone to wander around so we rounded them up and explained what was going on!

Before Marinette could answer, rose also took notice to Adrien. "Oh yeah, you disappeared too Adrien! What happened?"

Adrien turned around. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Marinette quickly spoke up.

"Oh! Um, I got really scared and I-Uh ran off somewhere to hide as well! I lost my memories after that point, so I don't know what happened." Marinette said nervously.

Adrien saw this as an opportunity for an easy excuse. "Yeah same here!" He grinned.

"That's so funny! Where did you guys end up when you got your memories back? You must have been really confused."

Marinette's breath hitched and both her and Adrien looked at each other.

"W-well I uh…" Adrien desperately racked his brain for an excuse.

Marinette quickly thought of something. "Well you see…" She looked away bashfully, her eyes darting between Rose and the ground. Marinette ushered Rose in closer. "It's really embarrassing what happened after I got my memories back, I would rather not say." She whispered.

Rose covered her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You guys don't have to tell me!" She quickly walked back to her seat.

"Thanks Rose." Marinette smirked. She knew Rose wouldn't pry into a friend's business if she thought it could potentially embarrass them. Marinette peered over to Alya, thankful that she was far too busy typing away at the lengthy blog she was going to post.

Adrien felt relieved, thankful that whatever Marinette whispered to rose made her drop her questioning altogether.

* * *

Marinette sat at her desk later that night. She had been reloading the Ladyblog every few seconds, waiting for Alya to post her lucrative photo of Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Finally, the picture of her and Chat kissing loaded onto the screen.

Marinette could feel her frustration rise again as she looked at the photo, just like it had the first time she seen it.

Chat Noir's cheeky "we're meant for each other M'lady, you're the only one who doesn't see it!" rang annoyingly in her mind. Marinette threw her head down, repeatedly tapping it against her desk.

"I don't believe it, I actually kissed Chat Noir! How could this have happened!"

Tikki flew in front of Marinette as she lifted back up her head. "Who knows!" She exclaimed. "Maybe you still have some things to learn about him."

"Yeah, I'm sure there's so much more to know about him." Marinette said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "It seems like 'annoying, pretentious flirt' sums him up pretty well."

"Oh Marinette, you know there's more the Chat than that."

"Yeah yeah…" Marinette dismissed Tikki as she scrolled to the description of the picture. It was several paragraphs long. Marinette read through the first paragraph, which just explained everything that had occurred before the kiss. Alya even admitted that "her and a friend" had been akumatized into Oblivio, and explained the embarrassing story the led up to it.

"Alya really is leaving out no details about what happened, even the part about her getting akumatized because of super penguino." Marinette laughed as she continued reading.

_Shortly after I was deakumatized, I regained my consciousness just as Ladybug was going to reset everything with her magic. Ladybug was preparing to toss her lucky charm into the air, when Chat suddenly stopped her hand. He looked at her tenderly and asked "Do you think we'll remember all this afterwards?" Clearly, Chat and Ladybug were both definitely hit by Oblivio, if there were any doubts about that concerning the news coverage of the event. Ladybug explained to Chat that her miraculous Ladybug is supposed to revert everything back, so they wouldn't remember anything. Chat suddenly looked very disappointed, but he soon smiled and took Ladybug's hands into his own "alright then, with your permission M'lady." He said, looking at her with an expression of love._

Marinette felt absolutely speechless as she could hardly find it in herself to read anymore. "I can't believe it, she's writing this like it's one of her fan fictions!" She gasped.

Tikki, who had been reading over her shoulder, fell to Marinette's desk in a heap of hysterical laughter.

Marinette's face was bright red. "Tikki it's not funny! She's embellishing what happened, that's not honest!"

Tikki quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and regained her composure. She couldn't help but feel she probably looked a little like Plagg in that moment. Laughing at someone, especially her own holder, was very uncharacteristic of her. "Marinette, I was laughing at your comment about Alya, not about you kissing Chat." She quickly corrected to save face. "And anyways, how do you know Alya was embellishing things? I think she's only trying to describe the event as she witnessed it."

"Yeah but it's totally biased!" Marinette irately exclaimed. "_with an expression of love_", she mockingly quoted from Alya's post. "That is completely and utterly Alya's interpretation!"

"Calm down Marinette, let's just keep reading to see what else she says about it" Tikki tried to reason with Marinette, who begrudgingly began reading the rest of Alya's blog post.

_Ladybug reciprocated Chat's expression, giving him a warm smile. Both leaned in to each other, and- _

"OH MY GOD, PLEASE STOP THIS!" Marinette threw her head back dramatically and covered her face.

Tikki rolled her eyes and sighed. "Marinette, just keep reading! Save your reactions for the end"

"You know what, how about you finish reading this and I'll go grab some cookies. You can summarize it in a way that doesn't make me want to rip my hair out once I come back." Marinette went downstairs to the kitchen while Tikki resumed reading.

* * *

Marinette came back up with a box of cookies and some juice boxes. "What did you find out?" she asked.

Tikki flew to the box and grabbed a cookie. "Other that describing the situation a little… subjectively, she actually offered a lot of suggestions about why Ladybug and Chat Noir kissed. She explicitly mentioned your suggestion along with a bunch of other theories. Alya ended it very open ended by asking her bloggers what they think."

Marinette looked a little happier upon hearing Tikki's words. "Oh, thank goodness! I thought she was going to describe us like our relationship was set in stone. Did she mention anything about the other boy?"

"She did write that you mentioned him, and that the whole event made you become really flustered. Maybe this will end up working out for you thought, perhaps people will really beleive that it was a mistake and you truly love someone else."

Marinette sighed. "I really hope so. I honestly just want this whole thing to blow over, but I know it's going to be all over the news tomorrow."

Marinette went to grab her phone off the charger and turned it on. The blog post wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be, but it was still surely going to change some things about her and Chat's relationship. Marinette just wanted to relax. A little little penguino sounded fun right about now.

She climbed up onto her bed and unlocked her phone. She saw that the last thing she had up was her contact list, and curiously clicked to her most recent calls.

Marinette immediately gasped.

* * *

**Today**

Sabine Cheng

11:15 AM

Adrien

11:20 AM

Fu

11:32 AM

* * *

"_Adrien? Why would I have called Adrien?" Marinette wondered._

"What's wrong Marinette?" Tikki worriedly asked.

Marinette's mind was running a thousand miles a second. "I- I called Adrien for some reason when I lost my memories."

Tikki's eyes widened. _"Oh no this is bad_." She wondered why Marinette hadn't cleared such evidence from her call history.

"I'm sure it was just an accident. Maybe you saw that Adrien was your phone background, and connected it to the picture of him in your contacts."

Marinette thought about this for a solid minute, staring at the call history. She finally shook her head. "But it just doesn't make sense though" Marinette concluded.

"And why is that?"

"I called Adrien _after_ I called my mom, and I lied to my mom about being with my friends. That means that I had already realized that I was ladybug by that point, otherwise I wouldn't have lied."

Tikki was beginning to really worry Marinette would figure it out. "W-well how do you know you weren't with your friends. They could have found you before the call with your mom."

"No that doesn't make sense because Rose said earlier today that she couldn't find me after Oblivio attacked!"

The kwami sighed. "Why does it matter that you called your mom before Adrien anyways?"

"You said it yourself earlier Tikki, the only way I would have been able to understand how to use my miraculous was if I contacted Master Fu." Marinette said. She ran to her bag to dig out a pen and paper as she began scribbling things down at her desk.

"My phone was nearly dead when the Akuma attacked, and it was completely dead once I got my memories back. If I knew I was Ladybug when I called my mom, but didn't know how to use my powers, I would not have wasted my battery life to call Adrien at that point without a good reason."

"That's a big assumption Marinette!"

Marinette paused her scribbling to explain some more. "No, it really isn't Tikki! I know myself well, and I am extremely cautious about things! If I knew I was a superhero who clearly my mother doesn't even know, I would have immediately figured that even my closest family and friends likely don't know my secret. Besides that, I wouldn't just call Adrien randomly thinking that he knows about superheroes, especially since Chat would have been wi-", Marinette paused mid-sentence.

"Holy crap" Marinette's eyes grew large as she dropped her pen.

_Oh no_

"Rose also said that Adrien suddenly disappeared during the Akuma attack, and that they couldn't find him…" Marinette stared off in front of her with a completely blank expression. She finally regained her senses, her eyes darting directly to Tikki's small black ones.

"You don't think that…"

Tikki gulped.

"Adrien could be Chat Noir, do you?"

Tikki didn't respond at first. After a long pause, she finally spoke up. "I really couldn't tell you the answer to that."

Marinette looked extremely unsettled. She picked up her pen, but her hands were shaking too much to keep it steady. Tikki flew over to her, trying to offer comfort.

"It's ok Marinette. It's only a theory right now." Tikki suggested. She feared this would be the conclusion that Marinette would come to, but she supposed it was inevitable. In that moment, Tikki decided that Marinette likely would not stop her persuit as it concerned the love of her life possibly being her crime fight partner; the very same crime fighting partner that Marinette was irate about kissing. Tikki figured she couldn't really stop her at this point anyways, and purposefully giving Marinette reasons to doubt her own findings might make Tikki seem suspicious.

Marinette nodded her head slowly. "Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. It sounds almost impossible just knowing how different Chat and Adrien are, but even people who know me well would never think that I'm Ladybug. I'm going to think about it some more."

* * *

After a session of writing and piecing together what she knew so far, Marinette had finally constructed a time line.

"Ok Tikki, I'm going to run this by you. This is just what I know so far without assuming Chat could be Adrien..." To Marinette, it felt weird just saying it.

Tikki sat on Marinette's desk. "I'm listening."

"So we got hit by the akuma when we were still transformed. I noticed the turtle on the elevator wall. We would have wondered why we're dressed as superheroes, and we would have been weirded out when our outfits magically dematerialized."

Marinette paused when her kwami started giggling at the last part. She smiled.

"To know that Sabine is my mom, I would have had to find out my identity first. I always carry my ID in my purse, so that is most likely how I figured it out. I don't know how I unlocked my phone, but that isn't really important."

Tikki nodded. "That makes sense."

"I either already knew or just realized that I was a super hero when I called my mom. This is confirmed by me lying to her. The fact that our outfits dematerialized with little flying creatures suddenly appearing probably helped us to figure it out. At this point, there was no way I would have known how to use my powers. After that, I called Adrien for some unknown reason. The reason had to have been really important though with my phone being almost dead."

Marinette briefly paused. "This next part is where I'm starting to guess a little more. I would have had to of matched the turtle drawing to the picture in my phone. There's no way I could have immediately realized that the turtle drawing had to do with master Fu's contact picture, so I must have made the connection after I already scrolled past his contact when I called Adrien or my mom."

"If that's what happened, it makes sense why you called Master Fu last" Tikki added in.

"Yes exactly!" Marinette said excitedly. She flipped the page over, and a blush immediately came to her face.

"And now…. let's talk about why I called Adrien" Marinette nervously cleared her throat, but abruptly was startled by the noise of her ring tone.

She looked at her phone and screeched like a wounded animal. "Oh my god Adrien is calling me! Maybe he saw that I called him earlier!" Marinette immediately began playing hot potato with her phone.

"Oh god tikki what do I do!"

"Answer it! It could help you figure things out!"

Marinette quickly mustered up her courage and put on a determined face. "Ok Marinette you're in too deep now, you've figured out too much, you might as well just do it!" She quickly said to herself, slamming her finger on the answer button with unnecessary force and putting the phone to her ear. She held her breath until Adrien's voice rang on the other end.

"Hey Marinette! Apparently, I missed a call from you. Did you need something?"

An awkward silence ensued.

"Um, hello? Are you there Marinette?"

"No... wait I mean yes, am I! Oh no I mean Yes, I like yams! NOOOO that's not what I mean. What I meant to say Is… wait what did I mean to say? Oh no I forgot what you asked!" Marinette groaned embarrassed as she drew the phone to her chest looking rather defeated. She took a deep breath and brought the phone back up to her ear. "I'm sorry Adrien, I am a mess tonight."

Marinette held her breath; Adrien's sudden lack of response made her unreasonably nervous. To her surprise, Adrien suddenly erupted into laughter on the other end.

Marinette's face turned bright red. She was glad Adrien couldn't see her face, but she eventually found herself laughing right along with him.

"You're so funny Marinette! I was just wondering why you called?"

O-Oh that! That was when my memories were wiped." She managed to say relatively clearly.

"Oh, that explains it. I guess I didn't look at the time you called me. You already know I lost my memories too, but I guess I didn't answer because my phone was dead.

"I'm so stupid!" Marinette thought. She didn't realize that the call hadn't been received when she initially looked at her call history. Despite this, she remained suspicious and decided that she still had to have a good reason why she called Adrien.

On the other end, Adrien began wondering why Marinette would have called him without memories as well.

"A-anyways, homework. Gotta go!" Marinette kept her goodbye short to save from making a fool of herself with anything longer.

"Ok, well seeya in school tomorrow Marinette!"

Marinette hung up and took a deep breath. "That was incredibly stressful."

"You barely said anything to him! What did you find out?" Tikki Asked.

"I guess Adrien's phone was dead so he couldn't answer it. I didn't realize that the call was missed." Marinette said looking at her recent calls again.

"Does that mean you don't suspect Adrien of being Chat anymore?"

"Well it changes my theory, but I still think that Adrien might be Chat."

"So why do you think you called Adrien?" Tikki sighed, a little disappointed that this finding didn't cause Marinette to give up her pursuit.

"Both of our phones were low on power, so maybe me and him got separated or something and I tried to get a hold of him. Or maybe calling him was a part of some plan we came up with."

Tikki yawned. "You know I don't really know, maybe we should save this for tomorrow? I think I'm going to go to bed early, hopefully there are no more akuma attacks tonight."

Marinette nodded, but looked down a little sad. "If Adrien is Chat, that would mean that I've been rejecting Adrien time and time again."

"That's true, but Chat also rejected your feelings as Marinette." Tikki said as she was climbing into her bed.

"Yeah, but if he is Chat, it makes me feel several times worse knowing I felt bad about kissing him."

"If that's the case, I'm sure he'll understand!" Tikki was getting a little bit tired of these teenager problems, but she couldn't help but admire Marinette's intellect in being able to analyze the situation so clearly. She already discovered Chat Noir's identity, so Tikki had no doubt that Marinette was probably right about everything else as well. "Now I think you should finish your homework."

"I will, but one more thing Tikki!" Marinette said, causing the small creature to open one of her little eyes.

"Yes?"

"I already think my suspicion of Adrien is reasonable, so tomorrow I'm going to check if he has Chat's ring."

"Marinette, maybe I should have said this earlier, but are you sure you really want to find out Chat's identity?" Tikki asked concerned.

"Well… once I saw my call history, I immediately knew it was strange. I don't think there was any way I could have stopped myself from figuring it out after that point. Had I called Adrien first, I would not have become so suspicious."

"So, you're saying it was inevitable?"

"Yeah basically… It almost feels like I intentionally left myself a perfect set of clues to follow!" Marinette laughed. "But I know that's not true because I wouldn't have done anything to risk Chat's identity."

Tikki smiled and nodded in agreement. "No, you wouldn't have."

Shortly after Tikki had dozed off, Marinette finished her homework and went to sleep not too long after. She found herself tossing and turning in bed all night, reiterating all the evidence in her mind.

* * *

I don't know when I will update next, spring break is almost over!  
Just hang tight until the next chapter lads.  
Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

The following morning, Marinette got up very early to google pictures of Adrien. He was famous, so she figured that there could already be pictures of his ring online.

She knew that Chat's ring likely had the same properties as her earrings, meaning that it changed color during transformation while still retaining its shape. This meant that the only thing that mattered was that Adrien and Chat's rings be the same shape.

Marinette found out that Adrien did in fact wear a ring in some of his photos, but the details were pretty hard to discern. All she could really tell was that the ring was silver in color. When it came to Chat, Marinette already had several very accurate extra models of his ring from the time that she made miraculous decoys to fool dark owl. Having a physical model to compare it to would also be more accurate.

She walked to school, deciding that she would have to look at the ring in person. Marinette patiently waited at the front of the building for Adrien to walk up.

Marinette looked into her purse at Tikki. "I think I'm just going to approach him like normal and go from there. Asking him to see his ring directly would be weird, and he might become suspicious of me."

"That might be the easiest way, but don't give him the wrong idea."

Marinette waited a couple minutes as more of her classmates began showing up. Alya waved to her as she approached "Hey Marinette, did you see the blog post yesterday? Cool, wasn't it!"

Marinette put on a large fake smile. The possibility that Chat was Adrien made yesterday's events even more frustrating and complicated. Alya certainly was an influential writer, as every single news channel that morning had been showing her photograph and quoting her very detailed depiction of it.

"Oh yeah, it was so good! Truly a fan girls fever dream if you ask me. You just have this way of describing things!" Marinette said, feigning excitement.

The hidden jab was pooling with Sarcasm. Clearly Alya did not notice this however, as she took the compliment with a large blush.

"You really think so" She said, rubbing the back of her head bashfully.

"I know so" Marinette said, copying the same comment and Intonation that Adrien used yesterday on the bus.

"Well girl, I'll meet you in class." Her friend waved as she walked away. Adrien's Limo pulled up shortly after Alya walked away.

Adrien was the last student to show up. He stepped out of the car, immediately taking notice to Marinette standing at the steps. He waved to her and she gave a small waved back.

Marinette started walking up to Adrien. As she did, she began searching his hands for a ring. Adrien's left hand was by his side and had no ring, but his right hand was masked behind his messenger bag.

"What's up Marinette?" He asked in a sweet voice that made Marinette's heart melt.

Marinette couldn't let his cuteness distract her though. She began moving her head around, trying to see if she could get a clear look at his right hand from around the bag. Marinette thought the movements were subtle, but Adrien immediately took notice. "Oh you know, just hanging around…"

Adrien assumed that Marinette must have been looking directly behind him, so he instinctively turned around. "Are you looking for something?"

Adrien's right hand moved up and away from his bag as his body turned, and Marinette's eyes followed.

_There's a ring!_

Adrien's hand was positioned with the palm side being the most visible to Marinette, only allowing her to see the band of the ring. She stepped in slightly closer for a better look, when Adrien turned back around.

"I can help you find whatever you're-" Adrien trailed off, as he took notice to Marinette staring intently at his right hand. Adrien's eyes curiously looked to his hand as well, and he realized that the only thing he had on it was a ring, _Chat's ring._

Adrien began to panic, and Marinette took notice to how frightened he suddenly appeared. He abruptly pulled his hand out of the air and shoved it back behind his bag.

"w-were you looking for something?" He asked hastily. Marinette looked surprised.

"Uh, well you see-"

As Marinette was talking, the bell for class rang.

"Oh no!" She exclaimed, running off towards the school entrance. Adrien desperately wanted to stop her, but Marinette was gone before he could say anything.

_Oh god I totally gave him the wrong idea._

* * *

Adrien ran to nearby bushes and crouched down.

Plagg warped his head through the top of Adrien's bag. "What was that all about?"

"Plagg!" Adrien worriedly exclaimed. "She was staring right at my ring and acting really weird."

"Doesn't she always act weird?

"Marinette is a little odd sometimes, but this was really strange for her. It practically looked like she was waiting at the steps for me to show up!"

"Doesn't she always do that?"

"What?" Adrien looked to Plagg confused. "Of course not, I would notice something like that! Plagg, this was different. You didn't see her, she was staring at my ring like… like how you stare at Camembert!"

Plagg rolled his eyes. "Ok, that is clearly an exaggeration. Camembert is way better than a ring."

Adrien loudly groaned "That is not the point! What if… What if she saw something that compromised my identity yesterday, and now today she's trying to confirm it! I did think it was weird that she would have called me with no memories! She could have been lying about losing her own to cover up something." Adrien said hysterically, pulling at his perfect golden locks in frustration.

Plagg chuckled at the boy's dramatic reaction. "Keep doing that and she'll think you look like Chat too."

Adrien let out another loud groan as he aggressively tried to fix his hair. He found himself unable to get it to stay how it was when he styled it this morning. "Fine, whatever!" He said giving up.

"Ok kid let's calm down" The little black Kwami said floating to Adrien's shoulder. Plagg knew that Marinette really did lose her memories, but he figured there was always the chance that she had seen something before or after the akuma attack. Because Marinette just so happened to be Ladybug, he decided to acknowledge Adrien's concerns in case it turned out that she really had seen something.

"I agree, that is a little strange, but your ring changes color when you transform. Won't that throw her off if she really is suspicious of you?"

Adrien shook his head. "We're talking about magical super heroes though. I'm sure it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination for Marinette to figure out that Chat's miraculous changes color, especially since my ring is the exact same shape as his. She could easily just google a picture of Chat's ring and then I'm done for!"

Plagg nearly laughed at the irony of Adrien's comment.

"_Ladybug certainly would know about Miraculous's changing color" he thought. _

The Kwami shrugged._ "_Well then I guess you might be screwed then!"

The tiny god immediately regretted his words as the color drained from Adrien's face and an expression of complete terror took over his features.

"H-Hey I'm just messing with you kid!" He hastily exclaimed in an attempt to calm his worried friend down. "There's always a strong chance that your just being paranoid and nothing will come of this. Marinette's into fashion, right? Maybe she's just wants to look at your ring for some inspiration!"

Adrien really didn't want to stress his mind with all the what ifs of the situation, but he still wasn't convinced that Marinette's strange behavior was innocent. He decided to concede his fears partially, and only put a small bit of confidence into Plagg's words.

The dark expression of Adrien's face lightened a bit. "I really hope that's the case" he said giving a stressful sigh.

"That's the spirit! We can talk more about this later, just try to act normal in front of her!" Plagg flew back into his bag. Adrien began walking towards class, but still couldn't manage to shake the negative feelings.

* * *

Adrien arrived to class still in a frenzy. His hair was far messier than usual, and he looked extremely disgruntled. All eyes turned to him, distracted by the unruly state of the blond boy's appearance.

"Sorry I'm late" he said to Mrs. Bustier.

"That's fine Adrien, just take your seat and we'll begin class."

As Adrien walked to his seat, he locked gazes with Marinette. She gave him a smile. Adrien always thought her eyes were beautiful, but right now he couldn't bear to look at her for much longer than a fraction of a second. He smiled back, but quickly averted his eyes away and sat down.

"Dude, what's up with you?" Nino whispered to him.

"What do you mean?" Adrien said flatly.

"Your hair is wild, you came in kind of looking a little pissed off, and your tone is different than usual."

"O-oh really? I'm just not having a very good day."

"You should tell me what happened during lunch." Nino looked to him concernedly.

He nodded in blind agreeance, not really listening to Nino.

Adrien nervously looked down at his hands. He usually didn't mind Marinette sitting behind him, but her presence almost felt invasive after what just transpired. There was literally nothing he could do but sit there and hope that she wasn't staring at him.

About an hour into class, Mrs. Bustier abruptly stopped talking and looked to the corner of the room around where Adrien was sitting.

"Marinette, why do you keep staring down at the desk in front of you?"

Adrien immediately tensed up, and slowly turned his head around to see Marinette's signature awkward grin.

_She is staring at me!_

Marinette paused for a moment as she looked around the room. "Oh uh, well you see. I've been having trouble seeing your writing on the board for some reason. I didn't want to bother you by saying anything, so I've just been looking down at Nino's notes."

"_Oh, good lord I hope she buys it." Marinette thought._

Adrien couldn't believe what he was hearing. Not only was Marinette staring at him, but she was also lying about it! He didn't think the kind and timid girl had it in her to be so deceitful, and it made his suspicion of Marinette significantly increase.

"On his tablet? But it's so small."

Marinette looked extremely uncomfortable as she hesitantly responded. "The digital notes are somewhat easier to make out than your hand-written ones."

"Why didn't you just look at Alya's notes?"

Upon hearing her name, Alya awkwardly laughed and discreetly closed the super penguino game that she was playing. "Uh, I don't mean to disappoint you Mrs. Bustier, but I don't really take many notes in this class. French Is super easy." She said apologetically.

Mrs. Bustier looked unsure at first, but quickly smiled to the two girls sitting next to each other.

"Oh, that's alright Alya. Marinette, you really should get your eyes checked. Do you want to see if sitting closer will help?"

"Oh but I-"

"Hey Marinette, you can have my seat for now." Nino chimed in while standing up and grabbing his stuff. "It might be easier for you. Plus, I get to sit next to Alya."

Marinette hesitated, but didn't want to reject Nino's kind offer. She picked up her bag and awkwardly sat down in Nino's seat, giving Adrien a shy smile. Chloe and Lila shot Marinette dirty looks, both of which were thinking that this was something she planned intentionally.

"Is that any better Marinette?"

Marinette looked to the board and nodded her head. "Much better."

Adrien thought Marinette's presence made him uncomfortable earlier, but this was on a whole new level.

Before Mrs. Bustier could resume the lesson, Adrien raised his hand. "Is it alright If I use the restroom really quick Mrs. Bustier."

"Yes, that's fine."

* * *

Adrien walked out into the hallway. He was about to enter the bathroom, when Marinette suddenly called his name from behind.

"Adrien! Wait a minute."

Marinette, who had apparently asked to use the bathroom as well, jogged over to him. "You seemed a little upset when I talked to you earlier, is something bothering you?" She asked in an attempt to get a gauge on his emotions.

Adrien still wasn't sure why Marinette wanted to look at his ring, and he definitely wasn't about to disclose his suspicion to her. He needed to try his best to remain unassuming. "No, not at all."

"W-well, you looked really worried."

"_If she's going to lie about staring at me in class, I'll lie a little bit too." He thought._

"Oh that?" He sheepishly grinned. "I realized that I forgot something important in my Limo and had to call my bodyguard to come back. I really don't like to be late, so that's probably why I looked a little worried."

Unbeknownst to Adrien, that tantalizing grin along with his messy hair set the cogs in Marinette's mind turning. Part of her innately wanted to believe the sweet boy's smile, but her thoughts instead shifted to a certain high-class trickster and deceiver's smile that was _just_ as convincing.

Marinette imagined a mask and cat ears on the boy, and the mental image clicked.

"_He even looks like Chat!" She humorously thought._

Just based on what Marinette had already discovered, along with her sudden realization of how similar Adrien and Chat look, she decided that he was more than likely lying. Marinette figured she would play along with him.

"O-oh well I'm glad you're not serious." Adrien immediately looked at her funny. It took Marinette a couple seconds to realize what she had said, and the girl mentally cursed at her slip of the tongue.

"No, no you are definitely being serious! What I mean to say is that I'm glad it was nothing serious." She quickly corrected.

There was a long silence where Adrien was rather expressionless, and Marinette was beginning to feel a little nervous. Adrien smiled and finally spoke up.

"A little tongue tied?" He chuckled, causing Marinette to ease a bit. "I'll be back in class in a few minutes. Thanks for your concern." Adrien began making his way to the bathroom the rest of the way. Marinette lingered for a few moments and looked at him until he disappeared behind the door.

* * *

Instead of heading back to class immediately, Marinette decided to go into the bathroom to talk to Tikki. She quickly made sure no one was around, and sat in one of the stalls. Tikki flew out of her bag and gave her an upset expression.

The little Kwami crossed her arms. "Marinette, you've been being painfully obvious all morning. If he's Chat, I am more than positive that he is probably suspicious of you by this point."

"I'm sorry, I guess I'm not very good at being discrete about things. Not around Adrien at least." She nervously laughed, but quickly perked up. "You should have seen that smile he gave though Tikki, he looked just like Chat with his messy hair and beautiful green eyes..." The teenage girl dreamily recounted as she put her hand to her heart.

Tikki playfully rolled her eyes, "Well, did you at least get a good look at his ring?"

Marinette smirked and pulled out a little piece of paper. "Even better Tikki! I realized after earlier that getting a quick look at the ring isn't enough, so the best way to be abosultely sure it's Chat's ring is to capture an image of it and compare it to the model ring side by side. It would be far too risky to try and get a photo after seeing how he reacted this morning, so I sketched a picture of his ring in class." She said confidently showing it to the Kwami. "It was hard getting a consistent view of it because he kept moving his hand around, but I managed to do it! Now all I have to do it compare it to the model of Chat's ring."

Marinette pulled out the little container that held Chat's fake miraculous. She took a deep breath and looked to Tikki. Before the excited girl could open it, she paused. "I'm really about to figure out if Adrien is Chat, aren't I."

Tikki smiled to her. "You sure are."

The pigtailed girl briefly looked nervous, but the desire to know the truth quickly pushed aside any negative feelings. Marinette opened the box, and began comparing the model ring to the sketch. Tikki observed from over her shoulder, although she already knew what Marinette was going to find.

After several seconds of comparing all the surfaces and ridges, Marinette had come to a conclusion. "They're exactly the same Tikki!" She said excitedly, although she was not at all surprised by the finding. Marinette's joyful expression quickly melted as she pressed her hands to her face.

"Oh no, They're exactly the same!" Marinette said, looking distraught.

Tikki could sense the oncoming breakdown that was about to take place. "Yeah isn't it great Marinette! Adrien loves you, and you love him!"

She soon regretted saying that as Marinette's catastrophic thinking took over.

"He probably thinks that I hate him! I've been unknowingly brushing Adrien's affections away like a jerk, but I'm utterly and disgustingly obsessed with him as Marinette. When he finds out my identity, he's going to think that I'm a huge creep!"

"O-ok Marinette, calm d-"

"And that's not even the worst part! Adrien believes that Marinette loves Chat Noir. He'll think I was toying with his feelings this whole time as Ladybug and then he'll hate me even more!" Marinette droned on into more ranting as Tikki tried to find the right words to calm her down. After several Futile attempts, Tikki was beginning to get a little annoyed.

"MARINETTE!"

Marinette's ranting finally stopped upon hearing Tikki's aggitated voice. "What?" she said dully.

"Adrien is a kind-hearted person, I am positive he will understand all the confusion and mistakes you made. It's not like he didn't make any himself. I mean, he turned you down as Chat Noir because of his feelings for Ladybug. You've basically been doing the same to Chat Noir, but in your case it was for Adrien!"

Despite Tikki's words, Marinette still felt intense fear about Chat finding out her identity. "Yeah but the stakes are like a million times higher now. If I've somehow given him a bad impression as Marinette, it's over for me. Besides that, Adrien loves the strong and confident me, not the clumsy and insecure side."

"I've told you before Marinette, you and Ladybug are one and the same!"

"We are the same person Tikki, but Ladybug only shows the positive qualities of my personality. Being a hero means that I can't show the world my insecurities. Chat only knows those positives, he doesn't see the full girl under the mask."

"Oh Marinette…" Tikki sighed and rubbed her temples. "I really think that you are just over thinking this, but we can talk more about it when you get home. We're going to have to talk to Master Fu about you discovering his identity, but right now you really should be getting back to class."

* * *

In the men's bathroom, Adrien sat in a stall talking to Plagg.

"I can't believe pigtails would tell such a bold-faced lie, doesn't she hate lying?"

"Yeah, she does, but of course she's not going to tell everyone that she was staring at me. We're friends, right? You'd think that if she just wanted to look at my ring for fashion inspiration or something, that it would be easier just to ask me directly."

"Yeah, but if she suspects your Chat, she probably didn't want to risk giving you the wrong idea about it. That could be the reason why she was trying to look at it without you noticing."

Adrien scoffed. "Well I definitely noticed, and she has certainly given me the wrong idea! If that's the case, Marinette wasn't doing a very good job at being covert about her intentions."

"That girl is a mixed bag. One minute she's super obvious, the next minute she's dropping lies like Lila."

Adrien grimaced down at his ring. He was incredibly agitated at this whole turn of events, and it didn't help that Marinette already suspected something was off. He could only hope that she bought the lie he told her.

"The worst part is that I can't tell if she's just being normal Marinette level weird, or if she's actually onto my identity." Adrien signed, palming at his jeans anxiously. "Plagg what should I do? She's going to be sitting right next to me now…"

"Adrien, I already told you, just act normal! I know you freaked out a little earlier, but now's the time to make up for it. If she thinks you're Chat Noir, acting weird is just going to give her more reason to believe you're him."

"But what if she figures it out anyways? I'll have to tell Ladybug about it and she'll be disappointed in me. She's already upset about us kissing, this will just be the icing on the cake."

Plagg gave Adrien a warm-hearted smile, which was rare for the black Kwami that claimed he only cared about cheese. "If it happens, be honest with her. Ladybug would never be disappointed at you for accidentally exposing your identity, she's not like that Adrien and you know it."

It was true. Ladybug might come off as intense sometimes, but she was the kindest person Adrien knew.

"_Maybe she can even forgive a stupid cat like me." He thought._

Adrien's previous dark expression changed to a big blush and smile. Endearing thoughts of his lady began to fill his mind. "She is rather forgiving, isn't she? That's one of the reasons why I love her so much…"

Plagg groaned in annoyance. He desperately wanted to slap the love-struck boy. All it took to make him happy was a little conversation about his partner, and any bad thoughts magically went away.

"Remind me to never try and comfort you again! Go back to class lover boy."


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry for the long wait guys.  
I am finally all done with finals, and am now on Summer break! Expect more updates and more stories coming your way.

Also-

Please read this before reading story:  
Ok so this chapter requires a little bit of clarification. In this story, the MLB movie in Animaestro is directly based on the character personalities that the anime trailer represents, not just the movie cover that we see in the show. You don't need to have seen the trailer for the Miraculous Ladybug anime to understand what is going on, but to summarize it- the creators of the movie in the MLB universe have essentially prospected what the hero's personalities could be like in their civilian lives. In this case, Chat is a jerk in real life while Ladybug is a clutz.  
Ok that is it, continue on.

To Marinette, it felt weird sitting next to Adrien knowing he was Chat Noir. Any time before yesterday night, Adrien would have been the last person she would think is her crime fighting partner. Adrien was kind and sensitive, but Chat Noir was super annoying and seemingly never took anything serious; everything down to his pattern of speech was completely different. Was that who Adrien really was? Was he actually a flirtatious jokester with a massive ego, or was that just his secret identity? Because If there was some kind of middle ground to their personalities, Marinette wasn't seeing it.

And that sweet voice of his… Adrien's voice definitely sounded like Chat's, but his had this unique and reassuring tone of kindness that Chat's didn't really have. Chat's voice was confident and cocky, nothing like Adrien's in terms of tone at all.

Marinette looked over at the boy sitting next to her, and imagined him saying something… Chat-like.

"_Can you take me to the vet purr-incess? because you've taken my breath away."_

Marinette couldn't help but laugh at her own imagination, although it wasn't too far from reality. To her misfortune, the boy next to her looked over. Staring at him directly in his eyes made her laugh even harder. It was lucky Mrs. Bustier was in the bathroom, because this was a laugh that Marinette wouldn't have been able to contain in the middle of her lecturing.

"What are you laughing about Marinette?" He curiously asked.

Her laugh melted into a blush. "O-Oh, nothing really, just thinking about something funny."

Adrien quietly nodded his head and looked away from her gaze. Marinette noted the unsure expression on his face as her mind began to drift off.

Maybe Chat wasn't really as bad as she always thought, maybe she was just too quick to judge him. After looking at the stark difference between Chat and Adrien, it was hard to dismiss his silly humor and games as Chat just being well… Chat.

Marinette knew she didn't exactly act the most confident when she wasn't Ladybug, so perhaps Adrien was the same in his own way. Adrien's father had strict expectations for him, so it was possible that Chat was a manifestation of the parts of Adrien that he couldn't normally show others. She could hardly imagine how hard it would be trying to live up to the expectations of a father like Gabriel Agreste, and the immense pressure from public opinion he must be under to act perfectly mannered and behaved.

If this was the case, Marinette could very easily relate to Adrien's change of personality when in disguise, because she faced a similar situation as Ladybug. Marinette was clumsy and had terrible self-esteem, but Being ladybug allowed her to be freely confident in her abilities. It wasn't only the physical prowess the powers offered that contributed to this, but the very fact her identity was concealed made the risk of judgment by others much less intimidating. Although, it wasn't all good. Being a superhero had plently of other negatives to it that came with the job.

Marinette sighed to herself as Tikki's words from yesterday rang through her mind.

"_Maybe you still have some things to learn about him."_

She couldn't help but think how stupid she had been in assuming she understood Either of the boy's identites. Really, it was an insult to Adrien to have assumed so many negative things about him as Chat when he had nothing but love and admiration for Ladybug. If her assumptions were correct, Adrien was likely different than Chat for many of the same reasons Ladybug was different than herself. It was clear to Marinette now that trying to seperately work through his two identities in her mind was not the right approach to understanding Adrien. Rather, it made more sense to conclude that all the good things she admired in Chat were the very same things she loved in Adrien, she simply was too blinded by Adrien's perfection to see it.

Mrs. Bustier shortly walked back in.

"Ok class, before I dismiss you to lunch, I'm going assign you partners for the poetry project due next week."

A unanimous groan was heard across the classroom from nearly everybody, except for Adrien and Marinette. The black-haired girl couldn't understand what was so bad about poetry.

"I like poetry…" Marinette muttered.

Chloe had somehow heard this and scoffed. "Of course, you would like poetry Dupain-Cheng!" She hissed.

Adrien looked to Chloe with a confused expression. "And what's wrong with that? I like poetry too."

Marinette was relieved to know that at least Adrien liked poetry. She couldn't help but begin recollecting all the puns and word games her and Chat liked to exchange while fighting Akumas. It was always a verbal battle of wit between her and Chat, and It definitely made sense why he of all people liked Poetry.

Chloe immediately began to rethink her words. "W-Well I uh-"

Adrien looked sympathetically to his friend. "It's alright Chloe, you don't have to like poetry just because I do!"

Mrs. Bustier sighed. "Well I know poetry isn't the most exciting thing to most of you guys, but it looks like we have a couple students who think otherwise." She looked to Marinette and Adrien, handing them the papers that explained the project.

"It seems like both of you guys enjoy poetry, so I think you would make good partners!" Mrs. Bustier exclaimed.

Marinette and Adrien both looked over to each other as their teacher assigned the rest of the groups.

"I guess we're partners then?"

"So it seems." Marinette nervously laughed.

"_This is so weird, me and Chat are going be doing a school project together!"_

"Well, do you want to make arrangements for the project during lunch?" Adrien asked.

"_Ok Marinette, don't stutter. Talk to him normally, he's just Chat Noir. You've literally thrown him across Paris, you've leapt across tall buildings with him, you've kissed h-"_

A searing blush made its way across her face.

"_Oh my god I've kissed him, twice!"_

"Y-Yeah, totally." Marinette gave two weak thumbs up in support, but she desperately wanted to crawl into the closest dark hole. She wished she could just go home and save herself from embarrassment.

"Well where do you want to eat lunch?"

"Home!" She automatically responded without thinking.

"Ok, I'll tell Nino."

Adrien faced to tell Nino he couldn't make it to lunch today, and Marinette sat staring blankly off into the distance.

"_Why did I say my house? This is going to be so weird..."_

Mrs. Bustier finished assigning partners and dismissed everybody. They began making their way out the door, but Marinette quickly stopped, realizing she forgot to tell Alya. She turned around to see Alya looking over at her and smiling. The brunette gave an eyebrow wiggle with an okay sign, and Marinette instantly understand what she meant.

On the way to her house, Marinette kept having to mentally repeat to herself that she was just walking with Chat Noir; something she never had any problems doing before. She took a deep breath, looking over at his face from the side and imagining him with a mask and cat ears.

"_Ok Marinette, Adrien and Chat are exactly the same person. Chat is just a big dork who tries way too hard to impress everyone, there is literally no reason to be intimidated by him."_

"So A-Adrien, have you heard they're releasing a new Mecha-Stike game. Pretty cool, right?"

Adrien perked up. "Yeah, I did. I've heard rumors that some of the new mechs are going to be designed after Paris's heroes." He looked really happy at this, which made Marinette's heart flutter.

"Y-Yeah, they're getting more attention than ever now a-days. That reminds me, we never really got to talk about the movie premiere a few weeks ago. I've been wondering, what was voice acting like?"

To say the least, it was weird voice acting himself when no one else knew he was Chat. It didn't help that they constantly harped on him about getting Chat's voice right, even though he clearly would know his own voice better than anybody else would.

"It was really fun, but they kept making me redo lines saying that I wasn't 'channeling' my Chat Noir voice properly." He mocked sarcastically. "What did you think of the movie?"

Marinette thought about this. She enjoyed the movie quite a bit (who wouldn't enjoy a movie dedicated to themselves?), but she had a lot to say about how they depicted Chat in real life... They surprisingly got Ladybug very accurate.

"I liked it, but I have a hard time believing that Chat is so stuck up in real life." Marinette knew she had to be very careful about what she said when it came to Chat Noir, she was standing right in front of him after all. "Chat Noir has… saved me a few times, and let's just say there's not a mean bone in his body."

Adrien took extreme interest to this and blushed. He knew Marinette was in love with Chat Noir, although he wasn't sure if she still was. Talking about Chat made Adrien a little nervous knowing that Marinette might be on to his identity. "Oh really? I've always thought Chat was kind of a jerk. Definitely seems like an attention craver, he just loves showing off whenever he can."

Marinette laughed at the irony in his comment. _"Of course Adrien would try to distinguish himself from Chat, he doesn't want me making any connection between them. I do the same thing with Ladybug."_

Marinette decided she would tease him a little, giving the boy a knowing grin. "You got the attention craver part right! Chat just does that to put on a good show for people though. Underneath that mask, I bet he is a kind and sensitive person. Probably breath takingly handsome as well."

Adrien stared nervously into Marinette's pointed expression. Although she was being vague, Adrien couldn't help but feel like that comment was directed at him rather than Chat.

"_Was that directed at me, or am I just being paranoid?" He thought._

"Marinette do you… like Chat Noir or something?" Adrien hesitantly asked on a whim, relatively sure she was going to deny it. He already knew Marinette liked him as Chat Noir, but he wanted to see if she would admit it to him as Adrien in an attempt to gauge her reaction.

Marinette wasn't at all shocked that Adrien would ask such a question, especially after outright claiming that he was "probably" handsome (definitely handsome). She blushed, but decided there would be no harm in telling him something he already knew as Chat Noir. "I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone else alright?"

Adrien was surprised at her response, and nodded in anticipation.

"You see… Chat Noir is frustratingly annoying."

Adrien nearly tripped upon hearing her words. If he wasn't speaking to Marinette, he could have almost believed that it was his Lady saying that! Everything down to her tone and intonation was spot on. (haha, get it?)

"When Evillustrator fell in love with me, Ladybug sent Chat for protection. He literally stood in my doorway and flexed the whole time when he came to pick me up, not to mention how enamored he was with impressing me the whole battle."

"_I'm so sorry! I thought that's what girls like!" Is what Adrien desperately wanted to say._

Marinette looked to Adrien's cherry red face, and couldn't help but think about how adorable it was. It made her almost break down in laughter, but she continued on. "Even though I thought Chat was just a stupid egotistical cat at first, my opinion of him began to change a few weeks after he protected me."

"A-and how is that?"

"Well basically, Chat had set up this elaborate candle light surprise for Ladybug, and I guess she didn't show for some reason. I really don't know why he came to my balcony of all places, but he did. He told me about his disappointment in Ladybug not showing, and instead invited me to see it with him."

Marinette gave an incredibly cute blush which made Adrien's heart skip a beat.

"That night, Chat showed me a side to him that I didn't think existed. I didn't immediately fall in love with him of course, in fact, I denied my feelings for a really long time. I think that was when I really started to see the kindness of his soul showing through the mask, and I just couldn't help but begin to like him more and more."

She paused and looked Adrien directly in the eyes as they approached the bakery door. "You see, I think Chat Noir probably lives the kind of life where he's unable to fully express himself without the fear of disappointing others or being judged. As Chat, he gets to be as free and wild as he wants, but he never loses his sense of kindness or compassion for others. I think that's what I respect most about him."

Upon finishing her words, Marinette began to realize that her confession had become increasingly less about Chat and more about Adrien. All the qualities she had begun to admire in Chat were the very ones she loved in Adrien. While she had never been able to muster the courage to confess her love to his face, concealing Chat as the true recipient of her impromptu confession made it so much easier to tell him directly.

Even if Marinette knew that Adrien was Chat, her assertion of the boy's life was deadly accurate; so accurate that it made the boy experience an uncontrollable whirlwind of emotions. He wanted to cry at how deeply his friend cared for him, he felt anger at himself for how he had initially dismissed her feelings; but most of all, he had the strongest urge to hold the girl in front of him and never let her go. No one had ever understood him on such a deep level.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she was the one to discover his identity.

"Marinette, why tell this to me? Have you told him these things?"

Marinette gave a funny look and rubbed the back of her head anxiously. "Well, I really trust you Adrien, and you've given me good advice in the past. And about telling him … I'm not going to go into the details about it, but let's just say that Chat doesn't feel the same way about me." Marinette intentionally left out the incident where her dad was akumatized because it would be a lie to tell him that her love confession was genuine at the time. Unbeknownst to Adrien, it was only since earlier today that she had really started to understand her feelings for Chat Noir.

Adrien honestly didn't know what to think. He wasn't used to her divulging so much information about herself to him, and there was a level of intimacy to her words that felt strange coming from Marinette. As Chat Noir, it wasn't odd letting others know that he was in love with Ladybug, seeing as how they were both superhero partners. However, in his personal life, he thought that admitting to being in love with a super hero would be a strange and extremely embarrassing thing for others to know, hence the reason he'd never told Nino or any of his other friends that he was in love with Ladybug. Was it actually normal for people to divulge such information to their friends, or was it something odd enough to warrant suspicion of Marinette in this situation?

The blond boy was very much still learning about the intimacies of friendship, so perhaps this really was just normal… Even so, he still had strong doubts in his mind. She was a good friend, but he still couldn't help but feel that they weren't close enough friends for her to be talking about such a thing with him. He figured he'd have to talk about it with Plagg later.

"Well... you can't help but like who you like, so definitely don't ever feel bad about your feelings. I still think that Ladybug and Chat Noir are meant to be together, however…" Adrien paused, thinking for a moment.

"If I know anything about Chat Noir, he has never given up his feelings for Ladybug despite her insistence that she doesn't like him. Because of this, I don't think he would want you to give up on your feelings either, Marinette. Keep going until you know for a fact that nothing will come of it."

Marinette smiled at him. His advice was strangely ironic, as he was unknowingly encouraging Ladybug to pursue Chat Noir, but non-the less beautiful. "Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely keep going until I know for sure."

They both walked into the bakery to be greeted by the smiling faces of Marinette's parents. The smells of delicious Chinese cooking filled Adrien's nostrils and it made him feel like he was on a cloud. Marinette happily conversed and laughed with her parents, Adrien taking note of her smiling face. He couldn't help but wonder if this was what real families were supposed to be like.

Even when Adrien's mom was around, his father was often preoccupied with work and was always extremely controlling of Adrien's life. He remembered the nights when it was just him and his mom sitting at the large dining room table. His mother liked to do things for herself, so she would often go into the kitchen and cook delicious meals for the two of them. The smells and atmosphere of Marinette's house reminded him back to those good times.

"Wow, I can't believe you got such as handsome boy to come back for a second time. It must be the free pastries." Marinette's mom joked, taking notice to Adrien standing in front of the doorway.

"Maman!" Marinette exclaimed turning red in the face. "He's my partner for a school project! I just invited him so we could talk about it."

Sabine and Adrien looked to each other and laughed at Marinette's reaction.

"Well Adrien, you can come by anytime you want." Tom added in, sounding rather suggestive.

Adrien clearly did not sense what Tom was hinting at, because he looked right to Marinette and winked, causing her face to flush. "I might have to take your dad up on that offer Marinette."

The young girl's mind hit new levels of complete chaos as Incomprehensible garble began to spill out of her mouth.

Marinette seriously wondered how she was able to hold a steady conversation with Adrien at all earlier.

"Anyways…" Sabine said awkwardly, while staring at her strange daughter still desperately floundering with her words. "lunch is just about ready. Why don't you take Adrien to your room until then?" Sabine gave Marinette a knowing smile.

Marinette's rambling stopped, as her brain immediately flashed to all the Adrien related things she had scattered around her room.

She shot her mom a dirty look. There were magazines, sketches of his face, love notes, and so many other things out that would send Marinette to her grave if he ever saw any of it.

"Um, one minute." Marinette stuttered out, quickly climbing up to her room. In approximately 30 seconds, Marinette had taken all her Adrien related things and shoved them in the big chest where she stored all 50+ of Adrien's future birthday gifts. She had contemplated removing the posters of him, but she knew he'd seen them before, embarrassing as that was.

"Ok Adrien." She hollered. "You can come up now."


	4. Chapter 4

Marinette and Adrien briefly discussed their project, arranging to meet up tomorrow and on Saturday to complete it.

Being able to see through Adrien's normally perfect manners and behavior was gradually making it easier and easier for Marinette to converse with the boy. She still needed to talk to Master Fu about everything, but was seriously hoping that she would be able to tell Adrien that she found out about his identity, and maybe even reveal her own identity to him. She didn't want to get her hopes up too much for the latter.

Adrien however, was still very nervous about everything. Marinette was acting normal for the most part, but stuttering significantly less than usual. Normally he would be happy to see Marinette acting more comfortable around him, but in this case, he couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with possibly knowing his identity.

"God, whatever your mom is cooking smells really good" Adrien commented enthusiastically, being reminded of just how hungry he was.

Marinette smiled at Adrien's eagerness. "It should be done pretty soon, let's head down stairs."

The two headed to the dining table, but Adrien stopped. "I'm going to use the bathroom really quick." Marinette simply gave a nod and Adrien went down the hallway to the bathroom. Once the door was shut, Plagg flew out of his pocket with a snarky grin adorning his small face.

"I take it you're not really using the bathroom?"

"No, I'm not." Adrien said shaking his head. "It's about Marinette. That love confession was super weird earlier, she usually doesn't tell me that much personal stuff about herself."

Plagg chuckled and reached for a chunk of cheese he had sitting in Adrien's pocket. "Yeah that was a bit strange. She's usually a babbling mess around you." He shoved the whole thing in his tiny cat mouth.

Adrien looked between Plagg and his pocket with a disgusted expression. "How many times have I told you not to leave cheese in my pocket! That's disgusting."

"Hey, let's keep the conversation about Pig Tails. You can criticize my habits later."

Adrien sighed and sat down on the toilet. Smelling like cheese was the least of his concerns at the moment. "I was the one who asked about Chat, but I didn't expect her to actually tell me her real feelings!"

"Yeah I honestly don't know why you did that. I would have kept my mouth shut about anything having to do with Chat Noir."

"I was curious if she would tell me! I didn't anticipate her getting so personal about it." Adrien groaned and lowered his head into his hands. "I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting… This whole situation is so confusing. If she somehow found out my identity, I really wish she would just be straight and tell me already."

Plagg floated just above his chosen's head, peering down sympathetically at the boy's sullen form.

If he didn't already know Marinette was Ladybug, Plagg was certain he would be just as confused as Adrien. However, he knew Marinette was Ladybug, making it evident based on her behavior that she had truly discovered Adrien's identity… and had a massive crush on him.

It was clear that her confession to Chat Noir just before their Weredad battle was some kind of ruse to distract Chat from discovering her identity. Because of this, Plagg couldn't see any reason that Ladybug would suddenly profess her love for Chat Noir after reacting so badly to them kissing, unless she already had a crush on Adrien and somehow discovered his identity since the events of yesterday.

It was hard watching Adrien go through mental gymnastics with this girl, but he knew there was likely a good reason she hadn't told Adrien yet. He did have to give props to the kid though, he is truly great at pretending like everything is fine in front of other people.

Plagg figured it was time to get serious about the situation. "Pick your head up and start using it kid, let's reason through this."

Adrien looked up to the floating Kwami. "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean what do I mean? We have to start thinking about what we're going to do. You not knowing if she does or doesn't know your identity is a risk and could be dangerous if we dismiss it, so I'm going to tell you what I think…"

Adrien felt at a loss earlier, but Plagg's sudden and surprising interest in his problem was… shocking, and perhaps a smidge hilariously unbecoming of the Kwami.

"Why are you suddenly so serious about this?" Adrien asked with a small grin

Plagg crossed his arms, looking a bit annoyed at the boy's question and growing attitude. "I'll admit- I'm not usually very serious about most stuff, but I've put some thought into things-"

The black Kwami was startled at the sudden burst of laughter that came from his holder. "Oh wow… didn't know you were capable of that." He snarkily interjected, making the Kwami's cheeks turn red at the underhanded jab.

"Look- I'm literally millions of years old kid, and hundreds of times wiser than you will ever be graced to know! You're lucky to even be able to look at me."

Adrien had to clasp a hand over his expanding grin to stifle another laugh, earning him a death glare from the tiny god of destruction, whose fists were now balled up in defiance.

He quickly sensed the oncoming aggression from the small creature, and tried his best to regain his composure. "Ok ok! Jeez, I was just kidding…. I'm listening now."

Soon after Adrien's words, the anger melted from Plagg's form. He still looked extremely annoyed, but continued on. "Now that you're listening, I've began to think that there's a good chance that Marinette really has found out about your identity. I think that her openness could be a sign that she knows you're Chat. You know- some misguided love confession to Chat in his civilian form. Tell me, what did you notice about how she described Chat Noir?"

"Well… she said that he probably lives a restricted life, and uses Chat as a way to be free. She also said that she likes his kindness and compassion for others…" Adrien spoke, thinking back to the conversation that happened just 20 minutes ago.

Before Plagg could say anything, Adrien continued on.

"She is the civilian that I've had the most interactions with as Chat Noir, so she arguably knows me best, but guessing that I have a restricted life did seem oddly specific to me…"

Plagg grinned, thinking that maybe Adrien was starting to realize things more on his own. "On top of that, kind and compassionate describe your sappy personality perfectly!"

" Oh ha-ha" Adrien laughed sarcastically, rolling his eyes at the Kwami's comment. "I don't really think those are my defining characteristics, Marinette is far more kind or compassionate than I ever could hope to be."

"Oh come on kid!" Plagg groaned. "It's clear that the girl was describing you as Adrien. You wouldn't have been chosen as my holder if you weren't those qualities, so it totally makes sense why she would see you that way. I know I doubted it earlier, but I'm really starting to think that she knows you're Chat Noir."

Adrien searched the small Kwami's face, only finding complete seriousness in his expression. It wouldn't be so uncommon for Plagg to be joking in a situation like this, but the intensity of his gaze was actually a little unnerving to the blond boy. Adrien sighed, clasping his hands together with one another.

"Let's talk about this later, I really need to be getting back to Marinette."

Adrien made his way back to the dining room where Marinette and her father were sitting. He took a seat next to Marinette just as Sabine was walking in. She set a bowl of food in front of Adrien. In the center of the table was freshly baked bread.

Adrien looked down at the piping hot dish. It had tofu and other vegetables floating in an orange sauce that had a small layer of bright red oil on top of it. The dish looked just as delicious as it smelled, and he couldn't remember the last time he was this excited for lunch.

Marinette peered over to Adrien who looked about ready to devour his bowl whole. The last time he had come to eat food with them was as Chat Noir, unbeknownst to either of Marinette's parents. She couldn't help but remember back to how _ecstatic_ she was to receive a rejection from Chat, and nervously wondered if his opinion of Ladybug would change if he found out she was Marinette all along.

Adrien noticed her unsure expression. Not wanting to alarm her family, he gently nudged her arm and pulled her from her thoughts. "What's wrong Marinette?" he whispered.

"Oh nothing, just uh- just thinking about our project." She frowned.

Adrien nodded, but couldn't help but feel that Marinette was being bothered by something.

"You sound rather unenthused about that. Am I really that bad of a partner?" He joked with a grin.

She recognized his signature Chat smile and her expression immediately softened. "Oh, definitely not." Marinette said with a smile. "I couldn't have asked for a better partner Cha-"

Marinette quickly stopped that sentence, realizing what she was about to say.

Adrien's eyes widened in disbelief at the girl whose mouth was still hung open.

"_Was she about to say Chat?!" Adrien concernedly thought._

Before he or Marinette could say anything, Marinette's mom walked back in from the kitchen with the remaining plates of food.

"I hope it's not too spicy of a dish for you dear, I can get you something else if-." Sabine paused, looking at the two teenagers who seemed as if they had seen a ghost.

"What's wrong kids? Is it too spicy?" She asked.

"Uh no…" He said with a slight shake to his voice. "I haven't actually tried it yet, but it looks really good."

In an instant, Adrien was able to re-collect himself. On the inside however, his mind was a chaos of thoughts. Sweat dripped down the side of his neck. He wasn't one to sweat while nervous, but then again, he didn't usually have reason to be _this_ nervous about something. All he could do was stare at Marinette, who tried her best to act normal at her slip of the tongue.

"_Oh no he's probably figured it out, he looked so weirded out by that! There's no way he didn't catch that."_

Both simultaneously decided that shoveling their mouths with food was the easiest way to avoid talking.

After a few minutes of complete silence, Sabine and Tom looked to each other in confusion at the two teens who were completely avoiding eye contact with one another.

"Soooo…" Tom started. "How's the project coming?"

Marinette was thankful her dad broke the awkward silence, taking it as an opportunity to act normal again.

"Well, me and Adrien haven't really decided on much yet. We arranged to meet tomorrow and on Saturday to complete it."

"What's the project about?"

"We're supposed to present a literary analysis on two poems of our choice." Adrien added in.

"Oh!" Tom happily exclaimed. "I love poetry! Did you know I wrote your mother a poem when I became engaged to her?" He turned to Adrien. "Son, you should try your hand at writing a little poetry, I bet you could get any girl you want if you romanced her with loving words from the depths of your heart. Maybe even my sweet Marinette!"

"Papa!" Marinette exclaimed, turning bright red in the face.

"Oh no he's doing it again…" Sabine whispered.

Adrien was at a loss for words. "Well, I- Um…" he started, but Tom continued on with his rant.

"You know my daughter Marinette is one of the kindest and most intelligent girls you will ever meet. You'd be lucky to have her." He said. Marinette just covered her face and waited for her dad's ranting to be over.

"Sir… are you asking me to marry your daughter?" Adrien asked, wide eyed. He flashed back to the night Marinette's father got akumatized and how similar these situations were. Of course, her parents didn't know Adrien was Chat, but he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable in the irony that this was the second time this had happened.

"Just put me out of my misery" Marinette muttered.

Sabine kicked Tom hard from under the table before he could respond. "Yowch!" He exclaimed, instantly knowing what his wife's action meant. He thought carefully about his next words.

"Well you know… of course not. I was just using Marinette as an example hee he…" He nervously laughed.

"Well I would say that was a terrible example Tom. Excuse my husband for his behavior."

Adrien raised his hand in reassurance. "It's fine, really." He felt the need to clarify himself right there in front of Marinette's parents, as he didn't want them to ever think he was leading their daughter on. Another Weardad situation was not exactly what he was looking forward to anytime soon, especially as Adrien. "Marinette is a great person, but _truly_ I could only ever think of her as a friend Mr. Dupain." He emphasized.

"Ah that's quite alright…" Tom said a bit deflated.

Marinette's eyes widened a bit at his words as she let them sink in.

"_He could only ever think of me as a friend, even if I'm Ladybug?" She questioned darkly, distractedly playing with the remaining food in her bowl._

It both hurt and annoyed Marinette to hear it coming from Adrien's mouth in such a straight forward manor, like it was just so easy for him to decide. She could feel something resembling anger building inside of her.

Marinette looked up. Adrien opened his mouth to speak, but Marinette quickly interrupted him.

"How about we just finish our food? Silence sounds really good right about now." Marinette said, with a little more aggression than she had intended.

Adrien was taken aback by her sudden annoyed words and expression, and everyone at the table looked at her a bit shocked. Her father suddenly had a very guilty expression overtake his face.

"Marinette I'm really sorry if I embarrassed you, I truly didn't mean it."

"No no… it's not you Papa." Marinette said sounding very stressed out. She peered out of the corner of her eye to Adrien, who immediately took notice to the slight eye movement in his direction.

"_Oh no It's me" Adrien thought._

Marinette could feel tears prickle in the corners of her eye. She quickly stood up and began making her way to her room.

"I-I'm done eating. I'll be back down soon Adrien." She said with a slight quiver in her voice.

As soon as Marinette left, Adrien and Marinette's parents said at the table awkwardly. No one was really hungry anymore.

Adrien looked over to them. "She left because of me, didn't she?"

Neither of Marinette's parents responded, completely at a loss for what to say.

"Ok I'll just go out and say it then. Marinette _likes_ me doesn't she."

Sabine looked to Adrien with a softened expression in her eyes. "That's not exactly for me to say, Adrien. But if she does like you, I would say the way you let her down came off a bit insensitive. Of course, you wouldn't know if she liked you or not, so don't blame yourself."

But he did know she liked him, he told her so earlier. The realization was painfully obvious now. Marinette knew he was Chat Noir and Marinette was in love with him. He felt like a huge jerk. Why did this feel so different than when he turned her down as Chat Noir?

Adrien stood up from his seat. "No… I had a suspicion that Marinette liked me. You're right, I should have been careful about how I said it. I'm going to go talk to her."

"Be careful with what you say to her, you could end up hurting her feelings even more." Tom warned as Adrien made his way to Marinette. Adrien acknowledged this with a nod and climbed the way up to her room.

He was about to knock on her door, but stopped when he heard Marinette's voice coming from the other side through sobs.


	5. Chapter 5

5 chapters in, and we finally get a one-sided reveal. Sorry if I got your hopes up for anything more lol. I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

I've been thinking… is it better to release Shorter chapters sooner, or do you guys like it when I release longer chapters that take longer to make? Let me know what you think!

* * *

"_I should have known he couldn't ever really like me…" Marinette sadly said, aggressively wiping away the tears that wouldn't stop falling._

"_Marinette, it sounds like he was just trying to make it so your parents didn't get the wrong idea." Tikki explained, putting her small hand to Marinette's shoulder sympathetically._

Adrien was startled at hearing another voice up in the room with Marinette.

"Is she on speaker phone with someone or something? I don't recognize that voice …" Adrien worriedly whispered to Plagg.

Plagg bit his lip nervously. He clearly knew it was Tikki that Marinette was talking to, and that she would kill him if he let Adrien find out Marinette's identity this way.

"Kid, I really don't think you should be eavesdropping on Marinette." Plagg stated, pulling Adrien's attention away from the conversation.

"Hold on a minute Plagg, I just want to make sure she didn't tell this person anything." Adrien quickly said, tuning back in.

"_-matter if I'm Marinette or if I'm her, he doesn't know me for who I am. I know… me of all people don't have any room to talk for making the same mistake, but it still hurts hearing him admit that he could never see one side of me in the same light that he sees the other."_

"_Marinette listen to me, Adrien still doesn't know this side of you very well. It's unfair of you to expect him to know any different when he has reason to believe you're two different people!"_

"Why would I think Marinette is two different people? What the heck are they talking about?" Adrien questioned. To him, it sounded like absolute crazy talk given the situation, but Marinette definitely wasn't crazy.

Plagg was beginning to get worried that Tikki was going to reveal too much information, assuming she already hadn't... He needed to do something, and fast. He decided to fly out of Adrien's pocket, which went unnoticed by the boy who was transfixed on the conversation.

"_I'm sure if you got to know Adrien better as Marinette, he would begin to realize just how similar you are-"_

Tikki instinctively stopped talking, and flew into hiding at the sound of Plagg throwing his small body against the hatch to Marinette's room.

"Hello, Adrien?" Marinette called out, trying her best to sound as if she wasn't just crying.

"What the hell Plagg? Why did you do that?" Adrien angrily whispered.

"You have no business eavesdropping on their conversation. You need to go up there and talk to her." Plagg whispered back, meeting the boy's tone with just as much anger behind his words. He gave Adrien a hard scowl before flying back into his chosen's pocket.

Adrien's expression immediately fell as he felt guilty for listening in on her conversation. Marinette would never sabotage him by revealing his identity to anyone, he felt terrible for even thinking such a thing… He just had to trust that Marinette didn't say anything that could reveal his identity.

It didn't make any sense to him what she was talking about, but he was sure it was important enough to Marinette for her to cry over. One thing was for sure, he knew that he had undoubtedly hurt her feelings.

"Yeah, it's me… Can I come in?" He asked. "You know, class starts soon, I really think we ought to get going."

"Yeah just give me one minute here!" She called out.

After a few moments that Marinette took to re-compose herself, she opened up the hatch for him. He was met with Marinette's flushed face and red puffy eyes looking down at him, and he couldn't help but think for just a moment that Marinette even looked pretty right after crying. He stuffed that thought to the back of his mind however, as the two just stared awkwardly at one another for a solid few seconds before Adrien decided to speak up.

"So um, I guess we have a lot to talk about and not a lot of time to talk about it." Adrien said, pulling himself into the room the rest of the way.

Before she could speak, both Adrien and Marinette's phones buzzed. They both curiously looked to one another and pulled out their devices, only to discover an akuma alert had been sent out.

"Never mind about going to class I guess." Marinette said, looking back to Adrien who now wore a strange expression.

"You…" he hesitated, averting his gaze away from Marinette's. "You Know, right?"

"Y-yeah." She said, anxiously looking down at her feet. "I-I've known since yesterday."

A long silence settled between the two as they came to terms with this new turn of events. Adrien was unsure of what to say, but Marinette was absolutely brimming with unspoken words and apologies that had been helplessly swirling around in her mind.

Her next words came out suddenly, startling Adrien with their intensity.

"I-I-I had no right to get mad at you! I should have just accepted that you don't like me that way the first time you told me and I-I" Marinette could feel more tears prickling in the corners of her eyes as she tried to hold them back from falling yet again.

"I was just stupid and have been a bad friend and I completely understand if you don't want to be friends with me anymore! I also promise that I won't tell anybody who you are, we can pretend like his never happened and I-"

Marinette stopped talking as she was taken aback by Adrien's sudden burst of laughter. His joyful expression threw Marinette into a loop of confusion.

"W-what?" she questioned, looking at the boy who wore a giant smile on his face.

Without warning or question, Adrien pulled the girl into a warm hug. She was shocked at the sudden contact, but quickly settled into the embrace as she wrapped her arms around Adrien's tall form. Everything felt right about being like this in the moment with the person she loved, and Marinette silently wished it could be this way all the time.

"You're very dear to me Marinette, I could never stop being friends with you because of something like this."

Her grasp tightened against the fabric of his shirt. "Well… then why are you laughing?" Marinette asked while looking up at him.

"Because I was going to apologize to you, but you beat me to it!"

Marinette frowned. "You have nothing to apologize about, I was the one who got upset. You were just telling my parents the truth, that is all."

"No" Adrien said firmly, pulling Marinette away from his body to look her in the eyes. "I knew that you had found out my identity, and I already knew you liked me, but I went ahead and crushed your feelings in a really insensitive way."

"Really Adrien, I shouldn't have-" Marinette started, but was gently shushed by Adrien.

"I know what it is like to feel frustrated when the person you like doesn't like you back. I completely understand how you feel, so you don't have to blame yourself for getting upset."

Marinette's expression softened as the words she previously was going to say fell from her lips. She peered into Adrien's caring eyes with a large blush. "You're so…" She paused, embarrassingly trying to find the right words.

"Handsome?" He grinned.

She rolled her eyes at his Chat-like comment. "Of course you're handsome, that one's a given."

"Oh, than what am I?"

She smiled brightly at him. "Your just so amazing… and I really should tell it to you properly this time- and I know you don't feel the same way back but-" she paused, realizing just how long they had been standing there since the akuma alert was sent out.

"I'll wait to tell you until you get back. Right now, you have an akuma to go catch."

Adrien smiled as they parted from each other. Plagg flew out of Adrien's pocket, looking rather annoyed. It clearly wasn't Marinette's first time seeing plagg, but she tried her best to act shocked when he appeared.

"W-what is-"

"I can explain it later. For now- Plagg, Claws out!" he exclaimed, as the familiar Green magic overtook his body and transformed him into the Parisian super hero and her beloved partner.

Seeing Adrien's Kwami wasn't new, but this… this was a whole different experience. It was strange, but the shear excitement of the situation vibrated through her whole body. She couldn't help but admire how attractive it was to finally see him transform in person. Everything that was beyond her wildest dreams just yesterday, was now happening there in her bedroom and being proven right in front of her eyes.

"I've got a city to save, Princess." Adrien saluted to her and gave his signature cheeky smile before making his way to the hatch of her roof and vaulting out of her room.


	6. Chapter 6

_This chapter includes the events leading up to the akuma battle, so there is a bit of backtracking. A lot of this is setup for the battle to come, so it is a large change of pace for the story as it has mostly centered around Adrien and Marinette up until now._

_I've been very busy, sorry for the long wait!_

* * *

_**Following Adrien and Marinette's departure...**_

Alya watched as Marinette walked away with Adrien, hoping that her nervous friend might work up the gumption to ask him out. The brunette giddily smiled. "Cross your fingers for them Nino! This could be Marinette's big chance."

Nino sighed with a smirk. "That's what you always say when those two are alone…"

Alya pouted at her boyfriend's doubt. "Marinette just has to work up the nerve to tell him. I'm telling you, she's come really close to doing it before. The girl just needs that last little push to do it!"

Nino frowned at his girlfriend. "That doesn't mean my man Adrien is going to accept her feelings though. I swear, the dude acts like girls don't even exist most of the time. He's never even told me that he's interested in anyone, not even once."

Nino and Alya began making their way to the cafeteria. "Maybe he just can't tell others who he likes. Imagine if a news outlet got hold of information like that! They already stalk Adrien, I'm sure he wouldn't want that for the person he's crushing on." Alya paused her rant briefly as the two sat down at a lunch table. Her thoughts quickly detracted from her pigtailed friend however, as she watched Nino pull lunch from his bag.

Her hungry eyes narrowed in on the bag. "I didn't bring any money because I thought I'd be heading over to Marinette's for lunch." She admitted, shyly rubbing the back of her head. "Do you think I could have some of yours?" She added very sweetly.

"Babe, you're lucky my mom packs me extra food."

"Even if she didn't, I know you would still share with me! Not that I would expect it, of course." Alya said cheekily.

Nino rolled his eyes playfully at his girlfriend as he began unpacking his lunch. "You might not have many expectations, but you definitely have other ways of getting what you want…"

Alya, raising an eye brow to Nino's comment. "What do you mean...?"

Nino grinned and laughed at his girlfriend's dumbfounded expression. "It's kind of unrelated, but you're like super good at getting what you want babe. You would be public enemy number one if you were as mean, rich, or influential as Chloe."

"I guess a reporter has to be crafty, right?" she giggled.

The certain blond girl in question was sitting across the cafeteria from them. The two were abruptly startled at the sound of the girl's obnoxious laugh ringing in the distance as she stood intimidatingly in front of another student. Chloe's face was absolutely smitten with glee at the cowering girl, who quickly gathered her things and ran out of the cafeteria with tears in her eyes.

Alya grimaced as she clicked her tongue in frustration. "Typical Chloe. I couldn't even hope to touch that level of nasty."

"You said it dude" Nino scowled as his eyes were still fixed on the door that the girl left through.

"I hope that girl's alright though. Definite akuma bait."

"You think we should go talk to her?"

"That's what Ladybug would probably do."

"Well when you put it that way…"

Alya quickly sprung up from her seat and grabbed Nino's hand. She pulled him along with her as she went for the direction that the girl ran in. Nino looked longingly at the abandoned lunch as he was pulled away and sighed. Food would have to wait.

It didn't take long for the reporter to locate the girl, as she was audibly crying in a nearby broom closet.

Alya hesitantly lifted her hand up to knock on the closet door, but froze before she made contact. The small black butterfly in her view was unmistakable, and it was coming right in the direction of the closet.

"Hey, there's an akuma coming after you! You need to get out right now!" Alya yelled. She tried to open the door, but only found that it was locked.

"W-what?" the girl muttered out as her sobs momentarily stopped. "Are you trying to play some sort of prank on me? It's not funny, leave me alone!"

"No, I'm not!" Alya said frantically. The akuma was only a few feet from the closet now. "I saw that Chloe was being a jerk to you. The akuma is literally right here! if you don't move now, you're going to get akumatized!"

Sensing the urgency in Alya's voice, the girl knew she better act now before anything bad happened. She scrambled to her feet just as the Akuma phased through the wall. Upon seeing it, the girl let out a shriek of terror that startled both Alya and Nino from outside the door.

"Did it get you?!" Nino concernedly asked, expecting for the worst.

The two stood still as a long silence settled.

"Yes Hawkmoth, I accept." The girl's voice rang from inside the closet.

The two looked to each other in fear, Nino grasping for Alya's hand as they booked it as fast as he could back to the cafeteria. They relayed the message of the akuma down the hallways of the school as they ran. Barreling through the cafeteria doors, they immediately spotted Chloe who was eating lunch with Sabrina.

"What is with all the ridiculous commotion?" She snarled.

"Everybody needs to run, someone's been akumatized!" Alya yelled to everybody in sight. She turned her attentions to Chloe once she saw everybody evacuating. "Chloe, that girl you made fun of became akumatized. This is all your fault!"

Chloe gave a nasally laugh. "I can't believe that loser went and got herself akumatized when I was just telling her the truth. She came to me looking for Adrien so she could confess her worthless feelings to him, and I put her in her place!"

Alya scowled at the horrid girl. Many girl's hearts held affection for the model blonde, including Marinette. She couldn't but imagine if this was Marinette instead of some girl she didn't know, and the mere thought enraged Alya even more.

Sabrina looked nervous and ready to bolt, but the blonde girl had a complete lack of urgency in her form. "A loser like her is probably not all that powerful anyways, it shouldn't even be a problem for Ladybug or Queen Bee to handle."

Alya's eye twitched at Chloe's inclusion of her superhero persona. Instead of responding to her, she roughly grabbed the insufferable girl up by her arms and pulled her to her feet.

"Hey!" Chloe hollered.

"It's beyond me why Ladybug would choose you to be a miraculous holder, but that's not important. That girl is probably on her way to attack you right now, and you are a sitting duck. You're no use to Ladybug as akuma bait, so let's get out of here!"

Chloe detested Alya, but she did have a point, although she wouldn't admit it. "Ok blah blah blah. I have to go signal Ladybug anyways, so I'm out of here!" She exclaimed, pushing past Nino and Alya towards the alternative exit of the cafeteria.

"Ungrateful little…" Alya mumbled as the two rushed out of the cafeteria not too far behind Chloe and Sabrina. Just as the doors slammed behind them, they could hear the entrance of the angry akuma as they left.

* * *

The akuma had gradually been backing the prissy blonde girl into a corner after she had managed to dodge some of her attacks. "You're seriously going to regret it if you don't tell me where Adrien Agreste is right now!" She growled.

With no-where else to run, Chloe aimlessly began backing up as the Akuma approached her, tripping over a nearby abandoned bag and landing on the hard floor with a thud. She hesitantly looked up at the girl with an expression of fear, mentally cursing at herself.

On the way out, Alya had opted to take a different route. There were only two hallways to go down. One that looped around back to the front of the building which happened to be the nearest exit, and one that was much further away. Alya insisted that the akuma would try and search the exits nearest to the cafeteria doors they left from, so it would be better to take an exit further away, but Chloe was intent on getting out via the closest exit she could. Ladybug was awaiting her signal, after all.

Chloe's plans for a quick escape were thwarted however, as the akuma lay in waiting for her just as Alya had said. The one kind thing she had done was buy some time for Sabrina to escape. If she just had gotten a chance to think about it a little more, Chloe was sure she would have come to the same conclusion…

A low chuckled emitted from the akuma's throat. She looked down at Chloe as if she were a bug about to be crushed without a second thought.

The akuma had long black hair that reached down to her mid back, much longer than her natural hair. Her bangs were straight cut and rested just above her eye brows. She wore a royal purple princess gown that stopped just above the knees, with shimmering black flats and matching colored lace that wrapped up and around her calves. Her weapon was a golden scepter that encased an orb at the end, which glowed a menacing purplish-black light.

Chloe had overheard Marinette and Adrien's discussion about working out the details on their project during lunch, but she wasn't about to tell the akuma where her Adrikins was.

"I-I really don't know! He didn't tell me anything, he just disappeared right before lunch."

"Well…" the akuma thought. "I'll have to go looking for him myself. This doesn't mean I'm through with the likes of you though, not after how vile you were to me earlier!" The akuma slowly lowered her scepter towards Chloe as the girl visibly flinched at the subtle movement.

"Adrien's capacity to put up with you speaks volumes of his kindness for others, so much so that he can't see your true evil intentions! He's a true prince, a boy with a heart of gold, and I'm going to become his princess once I find him!" The dark-haired girl exclaimed, her face overtaken in reverie.

Her large hazel brown eyes narrowed back to the blonde in front of her in pure contempt.

"I've decided that only a witch could be as terrible and ugly as you, so that is what you are destined to be!" With a sinister smirk, a beam of light fired from the staff and hit Chloe. It left no physical sign of damage, but immediately Chloe could feel something strange occurring in her body.

"W-What did you do to me!" She shrieked, looking down at her changing hands. Her complexion was beginning to turn a sickly green, and warts and blemishes began to litter her fair skin. She could feel her body physically morphing into something that was not her own.

"I told you, you're a witch now!" She cackled.

In a puff of purple smoke, Chloe's normal clothing was replaced with a dark black robe, and she could feel a hat brimming the top of her head. Along with it, a dingy broomstick materialized next to her.

"That look is very becoming of you! But I'm not finished yet…" The akuma fired yet another shot from her scepter at Chloe, who expected the worse.

"W-What?" She mumbled, wrapping her fingers around her now aching head. "W-what… did you d-do!?" She could feel her mind beginning to swirl and her consciousness waning.

"Tell me, do you really know where my Adrien is?"

Chloe wanted to detest the girl, but her mind soon went completely empty and something else took over. Her previous fearful expression fell blank.

"I can only know as much as you know, your highness. This girl is just a puppet. I can help you in other ways, however. Just give me an order."

She frowned "That's a shame. At least you can follow orders though, so I'll keep this simple for you. Go capture citizens and bring them to me."

Without speaking a word, Chloe obeyed the demands of the akuma and picked up her broom.

* * *

Lila watched from the corner as Chloe, now transformed into a witch that held little resemblance to the girl she was in class with, flew off into the opposing hallway.

Throughout the conversations… or rather- interrogation, between Chloe and the akuma, Lila had gathered a lot of information and developed a plan. First, she knew her ability was to transform those around her into other types of beings at her will. Second, Lila knew the akuma took control with two shots from her scepter, as she had seen with Chloe.

The first shot changed the person, giving them abilities. The second shot made them into a puppet, as the akuma had said. Nothing of the person's conscious apparently remained.

Lila sighed, readying herself for the plan. She immediately exposed herself to the akuma that was about to take off, walking into her line of sight and catching her attention. "I'm here to help you, your highness!" Lila called out whilst bowing down to the dark-haired girl. A bead of sweat dripped down her neck.

"What sort of joke is this?" The akuma raised her staff towards Lila.

Lila clenched her teeth. She hated playing someone else's servant, but this was the perfect chance to further her own agenda and enact revenge. If this were to work, she would have a hand in eliminating Ladybug and Marinette without being under the direct mercy of Hawkmoth.

"This is no joke; my name is Lila and I have information about Adrien and another threat you should know about. All I ask is that you let me be your willing ally, not a slave."

"Really? Well I'd rather just turn you into a slave and have you lead the way from there!" the Akuma smirked.

"It would be wise not to lie to me, your highness. I heard what you said to Chloe… I'm fully aware those you shoot with your second shot become your puppets. They don't remember anything of who they are."

The akuma glared daggers at Lila. "You dare eaves-" she started, but was stopped when Hawkmoth's familiar purple outline appeared over her face. After a moment, the akuma nodded her head.

"Hawkmoth advised that I let you explain yourself, but be quick…"

"I know where Adrien is" Lila spoke frankly, peeking the interest of the akuma. Before she could respond, Lila continued. "but more importantly, I know of a girl that holds Adrien's affections. She is a far bigger threat than Chloe could ever be; her name is Marinette Dupain Cheng!"

Lila beamed in delight as the girls face twisted into an enraged expression at the mere mention she could have a genuine rival in love. "Tell me more…"

She took the akuma's emotionally charged reaction as a fulfilling sign to her plan, which caused her nerves to ease a bit. Akuma's already held little grasp over their emotional states, making it easy to manipulate them. This girl's infatuation over Adrien would only make it all the easier.

Lila produced a mock concerned expression, laying a hand over her heart as if the words she was about to speak were anything but a dubious lie. "This girl, you see, is the vilest witch you will ever meet! She is a true menace and bully to those around her, but she has poor Adrien head over heels in love with her. She's so good at hiding her true self, that Adrien is convinced she is a saint."

Lila paused briefly, letting the other girl process her words.

"And if this hasn't already convinced you, right now, Adrien is over at this girl's house. I can only imagine all the kisses she's stolen from his lips with her lies…"

The dark haired akuma was absolutely seething in anger by this point, hand tightly clenched and trembling around her scepter. "What should I do? This girl is clearly evil. She deserves to be punished for lying to him and playing with his affection… I need him to know the truth…" the girl spoke, to whom Lila presumed was Hawkmoth

There was a long pause, but Hawkmoth eventually responded to her pleas. His decision was quick, as it only took a moment of decision. She looked back to Lila.

"I've decided- you will become my ally and help me to stop this girl."

Lila grinned.

* * *

Chat Noir stopped to briefly scan over the details of the news report. He quickly realized that he didn't have to travel far however, as the akuma was spotted near the school.

As he neared the school, he could see Alya and Nino kneeling behind a bush in the distance.

"You're not doing a very good job at hiding, you know." He grinned as he startled the two, immediately gaining their attention.

Nino turned to Chat. "We didn't want you to miss us-"

"Because we have details on the akuma!" Alya said excitedly, finishing Nino's words.

Chat smiled playfully and casually leaned against his staff. "Always the helpful reporter. I'm all ears- cat ears that is."

"Well…" Alya started, feeling a bit more relaxed at seeing Chat's laid-back demeanor. so, the akuma is most likely going to target Chloe and Adrien Agreste. A girl came to Queen Brat wanting to know where Adrien was to confess her feelings to him, and Chloe… Well, I don't know what she said to her, but it wasn't nice... We tried to console the girl before she got akumatized, but she was convinced we were just trying to make fun of her…"

Adrien nodded in understanding. "Thanks for trying to prevent the akuma attack, I'll be sure to tell Ladybug about your efforts!"

Alya looked ecstatic at the hero's words. Praise from Ladybug was always a plus when doing anything good, but it was better knowing that she was fulfilling her role as a hero outside of the mask.

Chat wasn't at all phased to hear that someone had a crush on him. Two confessions in one day was not so uncommon for the teen model, but it was rare for someone to become akumatized over it, especially before he even had the chance to properly turn them down. Just as Alya said, Chloe must have said something terribly mean to elicit such a reaction…

"Where was the akuma last spotted?" Chat questioned.

"The last we've seen of her- or rather should I say 'heard of her', was in the cafeteria. Me and Alya heard her rush in as we were leaving. Sorry we couldn't be of more help" Nino said with slight disappointment in his voice and features.

Chat grinned. "Give yourselves more credit guys, you've given me great stuff! It's rare that I get any information before going into a fight." Chat's words earned a bright smile in return from the two. "Stay safe." Chat waved, as he vaulted off.

Without a second thought or plan, akin to Chat's typical style… he blindly propelled himself through the front doors of the school.

* * *

_I hope you enjoyed! I appreciate and encourage all reviews, so feel free to leave them._


	7. Chapter 7

I know this story is G rated, but there is going to be a situation where Ladybug is staring at Chat's butt. Innocent enough, right? Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter! This is a little redemption after having not updated for over a month before chapter 6 was posted.

* * *

Once Marinette was sure that Chat wasn't coming back, she gave a huge sigh of relief.

"Well that ended better than expected…" Tikki commented with a sly smile. "But your plan to ask Master Fu is pretty much useless now that he knows…"

"Only if messing everything up and finally being rejected by Adrien was your expectation!" The girl groaned into her hands loudly in frustration. "I-I don't even know what I'm going to tell him, he's sure to have questions about how I figured everything out."

Tikki looked to her holder with sympathy. It wasn't too surprising that Marinette was unable to conceal Adrien's identity for very long, as she could hardly talk to Adrien normally without practically spilling her entire brain to the poor boy. "We can talk about what you'll tell him later, don't worry too much about it right now. Honestly, I don't see a problem with you having told Adrien. I had a feeling you weren't going to be able to keep it a secret for very long anyways."

Marinette gave a hard frown as she packed a few cookies into her purse. "This was all caused because I can't manage to keep it together around Adrien, I'm just such a mess. I thought I was starting to get it more under control now that I know he's Chat, but I still say such stupid things…"

Tikki smiled warmly. "You couldn't have predicted that Chat would be Adrien, so there's no reason to blame yourself. I know it's going to be hard working with him as Ladybug, but you can't give Chat any indication that you know his identity, or any indication that you're Marinette. Marinette and Ladybug both finding out his identity at the same time would be far too coincidental…"

Marinette gave a hesitant but firm nod. "I'm not going to mess it up this time, I promise. So long as he stays as Chat, I shouldn't have a problem interacting with him." Marinette looked to her Kwami eagerly.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Tikki, spots on!"

* * *

Adrien rushed into the school, only to find that the main entrance was completely vacant. He ran around looking for the akuma, and eventually came upon two figures standing closely next to each other. Their heads tore in the direction of Chat as he flew in, immediately jumping into combative stances.

One of the figures wore a dark cloak with a hood that concealed the majority of her features, aside from a golden masquerade type mask that covered her eyes. In her hand was a long staff that housed a blade at the end of it. The other was a girl dressed quite elaborately in a princess gown along with a scepter. Alya had said that only one person was akumatized, but it was hard telling which one it was from sight alone.

Chat grinned as he placed one hand to his hip and leaned on his staff with the other. "I'm sorry to break the news to you ladies, but the renaissance ended 600 years ago…"

The fancily dressed girl smiled playfully. "Your little jokes don't intimidate me pussy cat. You can call me Majesty, and that's your majesty to you."

Chat looked at her strangely and laughed. "I'd sooner claw my throat out than call you that. I think I'll call you Travesty instead, that's a much more fitting name."

Majesty's face turned red at Chat's mockery of her name. "You'll comply with me soon enough, once I have your miraculous!"

The leather cladded super hero sneered at her brazen words as he jumped into action, taking a running leap at Majesty. He aimed the end of his staff at her with full force as he went into a landing, but was stopped by the other person that resided next to her. Metal clashed against metal as Majesty's defender blocked Chat's attack with her own staff.

"Pussy cat, meet the head of my royal guard, Sorceress."

Chat could tell that his opponent also possessed super strength, as he was finding it difficult to maintain a constant force against her.

"Introductions are nice and all, but I'd rather discuss goals here. I know you're after Chloe and Adrien, and I hear you have a crush on the model boy?"

"We can talk about that later." Sorceress said, Chat hearing her voice for the first time. He hastily jumped back out of the attack when his arms started to feel weak from the constant force. He felt anxious at the thought of the two attackers potentially getting the upper hand on him.

Sorceress followed Chat up with another swipe of her weapon. He dodged, but the struggle quickly turned into a sparring match as Chat defended against her continued assault. Majesty aimed her weapon at Chat from the side lines, and several dark beams shot out at him.

A strange 'eep!' escaped Chat's throat as he desperately tried to manage the two-fronted attack directed at him.

Majesty laughed at Chat's awkward body maneuvers as he tried to defend and dodge at the same time. "Your dancing is great Pussy Cat, I'll be sure to turn you into my personal Jester!"

"This is so unfair…" Chat mumbled through gritted teeth.

After a while, Chat was beginning to feel fatigued. He found a brief moment to vault away from them, Majesty still trailing his path as beams came dangerously close to making contact with his body. Just when he thought he was a safe distance from his attackers while continuing to dodge Majesty's attacks, Sorceress came rushing in at him with her blade reaching out to the hero's form.

"Time to meet your end!" Sorceress yelled with a crazed expression on her face that sent chills up Chat's back.

In a move of desperation, Chat extended his staff straight into the air and traveled up to the ceiling with it. On the way up, he nervously watched the blade close in on the position where he was formerly standing only seconds ago, along with a look of pure frustration settling in on Sorceress's face. He angled himself carefully to land at the entrance of a nearby hallway door.

"I'm out of here!" Chat exclaimed as he teetered forward. The hero made his mark and tumbled through the doors in a triumphant roll. As the door closed behind him, the inertia from his fall continued to propel his body several meters more than expected down the hallway. He knew this was not going to be a pretty or graceful landing, but it would have to do. This escape was a victory of its own, even if the execution faltered a bit.

The boy skidded to a halt, his body having contorted in strange ways during his perilous flight. His world was now inverted, and nothing but his own rear end and the face of a pretty girl stared back at him from above.

That pretty girl was Ladybug, who wore a look full of pity for her unfortunate partner. At the sight of her partners… position, she couldn't help the thoughts that came to mind.

"_That's definitely Adrien's butt alright…" She would know, considering how often she looked at it._

"Just the pretty lady I wanted to see!" He proclaimed joyfully, earning a very unusual blush from her that made the boy absolutely smitten.

"_Trigger happy with the compliments, as usual…"_

This was going to be hard acting like everything was the same between the two, especially when Chat was such a flirtatious kitten. Marinette decided to just maintain her normal demeanor towards the boy.

"Did the kitty get kicked out by his owners?" Ladybug said teasingly, offering her partner a helping hand.

"I didn't get kicked out, but they sure owned me alright…" Chat grumbled. He took Ladybug's hand and dusted himself off.

Chat turned to look Ladybug in the eye, which elicited an unexpected reaction from the girl.

She couldn't help but to avert her gaze as another blush stained her cheeks.

"Is something wrong, M'lady? Are you still upset about yesterday?" he promptly asked with care while maintaining eye contact with her.

Ladybug gulped. The sweetness and concern emitting from his voice made her heart thump loudly in her chest. Of course, she knew there was no way to prevent the physical reactions of her body knowing that this was Adrien she was talking to, and Adrien who was absolutely in love with her… a love that she had turned down on numerous occasions.

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. "Not really upset, more just stumped at how you managed to get me to kiss you yesterday." She feigned a grin.

"Clearly my unmasked face was irresistibly handsome." He said, giving a tantalizing smirk along with a suggestive wave to his eyebrows. "If I kissed you again, I'm sure I could make you remember."

"Tempting, but save it for another time Kitty."

"_Tempting?" Chat thought. She'd never said that before when he suggested they kiss…_

Before he could think about it any further, Ladybug spoke again. "Let's go, it's time to teach this akuma a lesson for giving you a thrashing."

The cat hero tilted his head affectionately and smiled. "A princess fighting for her knight's honor? What a way to twist the Fairy Tale!" Chat said sarcastically.

"In this story, the bad guys never knew what hit em'." Ladybug said as she readied herself in front of the door, peering to Chat with a look of defiance. "On the count of three, we charge in."

"1…"

"This seems like a plan I would come up with…"

"2…" Ladybug rolled her eyes.

"I like it."

"3..!"

Both invaded the room in the blink of an eye, only to find that Majesty and sorceress were gone.

"And now they're gone!" Chat said, scanning the room.

"Where do you think they went off to?" Ladybug asked.

"Well, they're apparently after Chloe and Adrien Agreste-"

"Adrien!?" Ladybug exclaimed, interrupting Chat's sentence.

Chat was startled by the urgency of the question- or was it a statement? He couldn't tell. "Um, yes? Alya told me that the akumatized girl is in love with him. Why do you sound shocked?"

Ladybug gave a very awkward laugh while fumbling with one of her pigtails. She knew this was no time to be making Chat question her, so she quickly racked her mind for a good reason.

"I-I uh, well, I ran by Alya on the way over here. She mentioned the akuma being after Adrien, and where he went off too. Maybe they're heading there!" Ladybug explained rather quickly. Soon after her words, she came to a startling realization.

Marinette, who was currently moonlighting as a superhero, was no longer located at her home like Chat most certainly thought.

"_Great" she detestably thought. _

The heroine quickly thought of an excuse to correct her words. "Actually, never mind, the akuma probably doesn't even know where Adrien is anyways!"

Ladybug's explanation didn't exactly answer why she sounded so frantic, but Chat decided there was no time to pursue the topic any further. Protecting Marinette, if the akuma happened to have discovered his civilian identities whereabouts, was far more important.

"We can't take that risk LB, the akuma might have an ability that allows it to gain information from people." He explained.

"Yeah, your right Chat…" Ladybug meekly agreed. "Adrien is apparently at the bakery across the street from here."

There was no escaping having to go to her house first. Even if the akuma did go there, it would be her job to protect the civilians who it was targeting. The problem was, neither of the civilians who were supposed to be there, were going to be there…


	8. Chapter 8

Ok, so I know it's been a long time...  
Summer classes had me busy, Fall semester just started, and all that good school stuff prevented me from posting, but here it is!  
I think this chapter perfectly captures Chat's risk taking personality, but you'll just have to read to find out!  
I respond a lot to reviews, so please leave one if you'd like!

Chat debriefed Ladybug on the situation as they made their way over. He had explained that there was the main akuma who had a scepter that she was firing beams with, who he thought likely had the akumatized object, and another akuma who wielded a bladed staff (which he got to see up very close and personal!). He could only assume that the staff girl called sorceress was her lackey, as she took orders from the pompous one (he still refused to use her stupid name). He also guessed that she likely had some sort of ability that allowed her to transform others around her, explaining why there was two of them.

The two heroes arrived at the Dupain Cheng residence in a flurry. As they approached, they could see that the front door was smashed to pieces.

"Maybe she does also have an ability that gets information from people." She said, looking down at the large chunks of wood littering the bakery entrance. "How could the akuma know that Adrien Agreste had been here otherwise?"

"What do you mean _had been _here_?" _Chat asked, taking notice to her choice of words. "Shouldn't he still be here?"

Marinette wanted to slap herself at her slip of the tongue. Before she could even think of anything to say however, the distinctive scream of her mother's voice pierced their ears from inside the bakery. She looked over to Chat who wore just as startled of an expression as her own. Dark thoughts briefly crossed her mind, but she hardly had time to think before her body went into auto pilot.

She bolted through the entrance, just praying that her mother and father were okay. Chat had different thoughts on his mind as he raced just behind his partner. While he held concern for his friend's parents, it was his sweet friend that was front and center in his mind. He rushed into the door trailing just behind Ladybug, and the sight made him gasp.

Pots, baked goods, and broken furniture was scattered about. In the short amount of time since he last saw the akuma. Stood in the middle of the kitchen was Sorceress, holding Sabine up by her dark locks with her legs wildly dangling inches from the ground beneath her. In a heap in the corner of the room laid Tom, who appeared to be knocked out cold.

"Where is she!?" Sorceress yelled, shaking the small woman around violently who only responded with a whimper. Her face was crumpled in pain and fear, tears staining her delicate features. Sorceress took notice to the presence of the heroes and smirked.

"Looks like the life of the party has just arrived. These two were just the party favors."

Marinette froze.

The sight of her father on the ground made her blood grow cold, and the expression of absolute terror on her mother's face was enough to send her over the edge of reason. The ensuing reaction inside Marinette was like flicking a lighter in a room filled with gas and watching the flames envelope everything around.

It was an instant explosion of madness, an incomprehensible chaos of raw and unpreceded rage that took control of her body and mind. She couldn't even form a thought, but the expression that grew on her face in that second was indescribable. Chat watched the mess of her mind unfold onto the canvas of her face, and it sent a chill down his spine.

"L-Ladybug?" he barely had time to speak before she bolted into action without fear or hesitation. The next few moments were a blur. She grabbed for her yoyo, her mother was in her arms, and then…

Sorceress gasped in pain as she was smashed into the floor on her back. Her weapon flung across the room. Ladybug's foot was nestled just between her chin and neck as she applied pressure.

"_I'm going to end you right now." her expression was cold and intimidating._

"P-Please!" She sputtered out, reaching for her foot. "I can't breathe!"

"Ladybug, stop!" Chat grabbed for her shoulder, but she ignored it.

"This girl is a monster Chat, I've never seen an akumatized victim be so cruel before to innocent people!"

"She can't help it Ladybug, it's Hawkmoth… She's not in control of her actions right now…" Chat said, beckoning Ladybug to release her foot on the girl.

Ladybug scowled down at the girl, seeing the fearful look on her face; the fear for her life. She then looked over to her mom, who immediately had went over to her husband to see if he was fine. The pigtailed hero gave a sigh as she thought about. There was no denying that Chat was right, this was just cruel of her.

"I- sorry I overreacted. You're right…" Ladybug gently began taking the pressure from the girl's throat, but she hadn't yet removed her foot. Her weapon was still across the room, so she figured there was no way she could harm either of them.

"Chat, go get her weapon and break it. We'll make sure she can't hurt anyone else."

As Chat went over to retrieve the staff, an unnoticed smirk crossed Sorceress's features.

"Awaken!" Sorceress called out as Chat touched the staff. A dark light enveloped the weapon, causing Chat to quickly yank his hand away.

"What did you do!" Ladybug yelled out. The girl shook beneath her foot as maniacal laughter overtook her. The dark light that enveloped the weapon had begun its slow descent up Chat's arm.

"You think I have any power? It's all in the weapon. This is the first time I've activated its power, so I really don't know what's going to happen to that stupid sidekick of yours."

"You…." Ladybug hissed.

The initial touch didn't hurt at all, but Chat was beginning to feel the onslaught of pain forming as the dark magic passed his finger tip.

"Quick Chat, break the weapon!"

"I wouldn't do that!" Sorceress chimed. "Even if you break the weapon, the effect of the black magic will still remain so long as Majesty is akumatized. I am the only one who can remove it, and I can only remove it so long as my weapon remains intact."

Ladybug was beginning to panic. Was this girl telling the truth? If the magic overtook Adrien's body, what would end up happening to him? Would the miraculous cure bring him back if it ended up killing him? She couldn't stand the thought of losing her partner, especially now that she knew he's actually Adrien. She looked over to Chat with wide eyes, not knowing what to do. She could see the panic forming on his face as well, yet for some reason he still remained calm. He looked over to Ladybug, meeting her gaze with a cheeky smile.

A plan was developing, and a reckless one at that.

"Well, there's no reasoning with her then I guess. Eliminating me doesn't mean she gets my miraculous, so I might as well just cataclysm the weapon and take my chances." Chat said, reaching back for the weapon.

"Wait!" Sorceress called out. Chat was annoyingly right, killing him didn't mean getting the miraculous.

On top of that, Majesty was already untrusting of her to begin with, and she hadn't managed to find Marinette or Adrien in the place where she said they'd be. There was no way Majesty was going to trust her again if she turned up empty handed and managed to have her powers stripped away from her. Even if Chat ended up down for the count, the dark magic was slow progressing so he still had time to get the akuma before it fully affected him. And even if it did kill him, Ladybug had so many other heroes she could bring in to replace him. The odds were simply not in her favor

"I didn't say that you don't have any options."

Chat laughed at the irony in her proposition. "Last time I checked, it's not such a good idea to make deals with dark magic wielding sorceresses."

"There's a first time for everything. How about this- You don't cataclysm my weapon, and I will dispel the black magic."

"That sounds good to me!" Ladybug nodded.

"Wait" Chat interrupted, holding out a paw. "You have to dispel me first. You could easily just run off with your weapon and leave me here to well uh- let the black magic do its thing."

"And how do I know that you won't just cataclysm my weapon after I dispel you?"

The leather cladded hero smirked down at the girl. "Because" he said simply. "I have a plan, and if you don't agree to it, I am more than willing to take one for the team. Who knows, if I'm lucky, the miraculous cure might just bring me back."


End file.
